The Sunday Sermon Archive

Dear Friend,

Today we celebrate the birth of St. John the Baptist. In the Middle Ages this feast was celebrated as the Summer Christmas. There were three Masses just as on Christmas itself.

The birth of St. John, the precursor of Christ, marks a very important time in the history of the world. This is six months prior to the birth of Our Lord Himself. Not only did he announce the coming of Christ as an adult, but even his very birth was an announcement of He who was coming.

Consider St. John's mother Elizabeth. She was an old woman far past the child bearing age. This wonderful miracle is obviously a preparation for a much more wonderful virgin birth. For those who will accept the fact of on old woman conceiving and giving birth by the grace of God, they will receive an even greater gift: a virgin will conceive and bring forth a son. But, not just any son, this son will be The Son of God.

The Angel Gabriel is very much involved in the announcing of both of these births; first to Zachary, and then six months later, to Mary. The Angel Gabriel had announced to Zachary that "many would rejoice" in the birth of John the Baptist: indeed, not only the parents and neighbors, who celebrated the event, are included in this prophecy; it extends to all Christians, whom the Church summons every year to celebrate the birth of the Forerunner of our Lord, with whose coming he is closely connected.

Zachary was made dumb because he did not believe the words of the Angel. If only everyone who did not believe the words of God were made dumb. How much quieter this world would be, not to mention how much holier also.

The ways of God are greater than the ways of man. We can only see with a very limited finite vision. God, without limit, sees all. Our first inclination when God speaks to us about things we cannot understand is to doubt God. We think that we understand the ways of nature and what can and cannot happen and we even venture to predict what may or may not happen. The weather predictions are among the most notorious of men's inability to clearly see what will take place.

Zachary heard the words of the Angel Gabriel, but his reason and experience became a hindrance to his accepting the words of God. Old women do not have children. We know in theory that God can do all things, and often even if we pray for God to perform a miracle in our favor, we still do not really believe that it will take place. (We must then ask ourselves, are we really praying.)

With the conception of St. John, God is already preparing the world for a greater gift. The punishment for not cooperating with God in His gift of the precursor was taking away the gift of speech from Zachary. What will become of those who refuse to cooperate with the gift of God Himself in the Blessed Sacrament? If only they were silenced, but it seems that their punishment is much worse, they are made spiritually blind. They continue to babble even of things which they cannot see. They speak from the fullness of their ignorance. This spiritual blindness prevents them from seeing and believing and causes great confusion and darkness here on earth, but what is even far worse is, it causes eternal damnation.

St. John announced to the world the coming of Christ. And we see that he was not received well. First by his own father (who repented) and in the end by Herod who had St. John beheaded. This is how the world received the messenger. We see that the Word made Flesh received even worse. The world rejected the penance and austerity of St. John, and it likewise rejected the peace and rejoicing of Christ. There is no pleasing the world.

Let us begin to do penance as St. John instructs us, so that we may be able to receive Our Lord Himself in peace and rejoicing.

Let us open up our eyes to the light of God's grace. May we recognize the smaller miracles that take place so that we may be made worthy to recognize the greater ones. St. John came to this world by the miraculous birth from Elizabeth in her old age. For those that believe this, Jesus came to this earth as one of us, born of the Virgin Mary. For those that believe this, Jesus remains with us hidden in the Blessed Sacrament, by the grace of transubstantiation. For those that believe this, they will be eternally united with God in Heaven. Each grace begets a greater one, and we must never despise even the smallest of graces because if we do so we will cut off the greater gifts that are conditioned upon the acceptance of the lesser ones.

May St. John the Baptist ever continue in us the role of Forerunner, which was his on earth, by guiding our souls in the way of eternal salvation.

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