Daily Gospel Reflection
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June 24, 2021
When the time arrived for Elizabeth to have her child
she gave birth to a son.
Her neighbors and relatives heard
that the Lord had shown his great mercy toward her,
and they rejoiced with her.
When they came on the eighth day to circumcise the child,
they were going to call him Zechariah after his father,
but his mother said in reply,
“No. He will be called John.”
But they answered her,
“There is no one among your relatives who has this name.”
So they made signs, asking his father what he wished him to be called.
He asked for a tablet and wrote, “John is his name,”
and all were amazed.
Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed,
and he spoke blessing God.
Then fear came upon all their neighbors,
and all these matters were discussed
throughout the hill country of Judea.
All who heard these things took them to heart, saying,
“What, then, will this child be?”
For surely the hand of the Lord was with him.
The child grew and became strong in spirit,
and he was in the desert until the day
of his manifestation to Israel.
Earlier in Luke’s Gospel, an angel visits Zechariah, telling him that his wife will soon conceive and bear a son, and they are to name the son John. Zechariah answers with disbelief. While Luke doesn’t say exactly how old Zechariah and Elizabeth were, we know that “they were both advanced in years,” and thus Zechariah’s doubt isn’t without basis. The angel punishes Zechariah for his misgivings by making him mute until the child is born. When Zechariah fulfills the angel’s prophecy by naming the boy John, his muteness vanished—“his mouth was opened and his tongue freed.”
It is not hard to imagine being in Zechariah’s position—he was faced with something seemingly impossible. How often are we faced with intractable problems in our daily lives? When faced with a challenge, it is too easy—and some would say socially acceptable—to brush it off as unmanageable. Unlike Zechariah, we do not have the benefit of an angel literally telling us that a seemingly impossible obstacle is the will of God.
Zechariah had to be patient. God’s will for us will become clear when we follow Zechariah’s example—when we take up his patience and prayerfulness.
Today, let us be mindful of what obstacles we will face with those close to us, whether as large as a cross-country move or simply a difficult, dreaded conversation. Let us meet these obstacles with Zechariah’s prayer and patience.
In the words of the Our Father, we pray, “Thy will be done.”
Prayer
Lord, we hear in today’s Gospel about the birth of John the Baptist. He was to go before you, clearing the way and lighting up the path you were to follow. Now it is our turn to prepare the way for others to find you by the way we lead our lives. Give us the courage and zeal of John to do so. Amen.
Saint of the Day
Nearly every saint has a feast day on the calendar that marks the date of their death because that is the day on which they entered eternal life in heaven. Mary and John the Baptist are both exceptions to this rule. We have feast days for both their births and entry into eternal life because of their proximity to the most important events in human history—the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Today, we celebrate the birth of John the Baptist because he came to announce to the world the coming of our savior.
John the Baptist falls under many of the familiar categories of holiness that are found among the saints: he was a great teacher and a martyr; he was chaste for his whole life; he was also a prophet—the last prophet, in fact.
His birth was foretold to his father, Zechariah, who was a priest, when an angel appeared to him while he was offering sacrifice and prayers before the altar. Though his wife, Elizabeth, was infertile, and they were both approaching old age, she conceived and bore a son and they named him John.
John became a hermit and lived in the desert, fasting and praying. When he was 30, he began preaching and encouraging people to repentance and conversion, and he used the ritual washing of baptism to symbolize spiritual cleansing.
When Jesus began his ministry, he came to John, who baptized him and submitted to his authority. John continued to preach as Jesus went through Galilee. When John spoke out against King Herod’s adultery, the king had him arrested, and he was eventually beheaded.
The feast of the birth of John the Baptist is one of the oldest feasts in the calendar. It falls just after the summer solstice, at a moment when the days start to get noticeably shorter (until the return of the sun at the birth of Jesus at Christmas). St. Augustine thought that this was appropriate because when John’s followers were disturbed that people were following Jesus instead of him, he replied, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
John the Baptist is often depicted with a lamb because he identified Jesus as “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29). A number of relics of John the Baptist rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica, including a piece of the house he grew up in. He is depicted in the Basilica in a stained glass window shown here and in a wall mural. He is also shown baptizing Jesus in a tapestry that hangs near the baptismal font in the Basilica.
St. John the Baptist, you pointed the world towards the coming of Jesus, our savior—pray for us!