John the Baptizer: Witness to Joy and Courage
June 24, 2007

Readings for the Nativity of St. John the Baptist

Reading 1: Is. 49:1–6

Responsorial Psalm: Ps. 139:1b–3, 13–14ab, 14c–15

Reading 2: Acts 13:22–26

Gospel: Lk. 1:57–66, 80

Link to Readings

By Father Frank Pavone

We celebrate today the Birth of John the Baptizer, exactly six months before we celebrate the Birth of Christ. At the Annunciation, when Jesus was conceived, Gabriel told Mary that Elizabeth, John’s mother, was in her sixth month. Hence we have the date of this Feast, which is so important to the Church that, unlike most other Feasts, when it falls on a Sunday, it takes precedence over the usual Sunday prayers and readings.

Nature also speaks to us of the significance of this Feast, because at this time of the year we have the longest days. As the daylight begins ever so gradually to decrease in the next six months, we are reminded of John’s words about Jesus, “He must increase, I must decrease.”

This Feast is important because John is all about Jesus: He points to Jesus, tells us how to prepare for Him, introduces Him, and dies for Him. As the Gospel passages from both from the Vigil Mass and the Mass During the Day make clear, John was chosen by God to announce the Lord’s coming. His ministry was completely focused on Jesus, as is the entire ministry of the Church. It is easy to mistake the preaching of the Gospel with merely an exposition of values or principles. Certainly, the Gospel entails both. But the Gospel is a person, and the work of the Church is to introduce people to that person.

John rejoiced, even as an unborn child, at the presence of Christ in the flesh. When Mary, now carrying Jesus in her womb, visited Elizabeth, John leaped for joy in Elizabeth’s womb. It was the nearness of the person of Christ, and therefore the nearness of salvation, that caused John to rejoice. The nature of this joy that John had, and that we have at John’s birth, is understood in the light of what Pope John Paul II wrote at the start of “The Gospel of Life”:

At the dawn of salvation, it is the Birth of a Child which is proclaimed as joyful news: “I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Lk. 2:10–11). The source of this “great joy” is the Birth of the Savior; but Christmas also reveals the full meaning of every human birth, and the joy which accompanies the Birth of the Messiah is thus seen to be the foundation and fulfillment of joy at every child born into the world (cf. Jn. 16:21).” (Evangelium Vitae, no. 1)

Yet the coming of this Messiah announced by John requires repentance, which is why John baptized. His preaching of repentance was realistic and relentless. He spoke of God’s judgment and of the urgency of turning back to Him before it was too late. John’s preaching of repentance is “the voice crying in the wilderness: prepare ye the way of the Lord!”

Integral to repentance is accepting God’s dominion over human life and rejecting the idea that life is disposable by our own choice. Some try to be both Christian and pro-choice on abortion, but it is inherently contradictory. The fruit of repentance is a clear and uncompromising commitment to defend the sanctity of every human life, both on a personal and societal level.

To proclaim the Culture of Life requires that we be prophetic. We realize, as the first reading indicates, that the message we proclaim, and the motive for which we proclaim it, are given to us from God. They do not derive from us. This is one of the key differences between our pro-life stance and that of the “pro-choice” defenders of death. They think that we are proclaiming “our own opinion,” and that in doing so, are setting ourselves up as superior to others. But nothing could be further from the truth. The message we have is the Lord’s, and the authority we have to proclaim it is not any superiority of ours, but precisely His command and His will to save humanity.

That is why John was able to challenge even King Herod for violating the sanctity of marriage. This prophetic rebuke is what caused his imprisonment and martyrdom. Yet because life belongs to the Lord, we cannot betray him in order to hold onto it.

John the Baptist preached the truth boldly, without sugarcoating it. In a Culture of Death, we must do the same. In “The Gospel of Life,” Pope John Paul II put it this way:

The acceptance of abortion in the popular mind, in behavior and even in law itself, is a telling sign of an extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense, which is becoming more and more incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, even when the fundamental right to life is at stake.

Given such a grave situation, we need now more than ever to have the courage to look the truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name, without yielding to convenient compromises or to the temptation of self-deception. In this regard the reproach of the Prophet is extremely straightforward: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness” (Is. 5:20).

Especially in the case of abortion there is a widespread use of ambiguous terminology, such as “interruption of pregnancy”, which tends to hide abortion’s true nature and to attenuate its seriousness in public opinion. Perhaps this linguistic phenomenon is itself a symptom of an uneasiness of conscience. But no word has the power to change the reality of things: procured abortion is the deliberate and direct killing, by whatever means it is carried out, of a human being in the initial phase of his or her existence, extending from conception to birth. (Evangelium Vitae, no. 58)

Let us, then, receive the gifts that this Feast brings us: joy and courage. Let us rejoice that our Messiah has come. Let us welcome Him, the person who stands at the center of our lives and of human history. And let us drink of His courage, manifested in John the Baptizer and in all who fight for what is right. Through that courage and joy, let us advance the Culture of Life, which Christ came to establish.

Father Frank Pavone is the national director for Priests for Life and a member of CUF's advisory council. He is a contributor to Lay Witness magazine.

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