Like Mary, John the Baptist was intimately associated with the Mystery of the Redemptive Incarnation

John the Baptist is the only saint besides the Virgin Mary whose holiness we celebrate at his birth. Like the Virgin Mary, he is intimately associated with the Mystery of the Redemptive Incarnation. Saint Luke's Infancy Gospel tells us that, at the moment of the Virgin's Visitation to her cousin Elizabeth, who was pregnant with John the Baptist, the baby leapt into her womb.

Holy Tradition has always recognized this as a sign of the precursor's purification, a moment of exceptional grace. Through this secret - both providential and charismatic - encounter between Christ and his humble baptizer, Tradition says that John the Baptist received the grace of Jesus' future sacrament of baptism. Today's Gospel passage insists on the fact that the name “John” was imposed by the angel at the annunciation to Zacharias in the Temple. This name means “the graced one”, the bearer of grace. In fact, after the Virgin Mary, he is the first to have received grace. Mary was uniquely graced, as the Mother of the Redeemer, even before her conception, as she would later reveal to St. Bernadette.

The birth of John the Baptist, like the birth of the Virgin Mary, is therefore associated with the Incarnation of Christ the Savior. His mission was to proclaim to the people of his time that the promised age of saving grace had arrived. According to the Song of Zechariah (his father), his vocation was to precede the Messiah-Savior and prepare the way for him, especially through the institution of baptism by water. The purpose of his mission was to show the chosen people that the time had come for them to be delivered from their sins, for God had come to reveal to the world the magnificence of his mercy through forgiveness.

Like the Virgin Mary, through prophetic grace, John the Baptist was able to recognize that the Messiah not only came from God and represented him, but that he also was God. Christ had come to share the fallen human condition.

Brother John the Baptist

Homily for the Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist - Saturday, June 24, 2023

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