Father Paul Weinberger
Saint William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
Nativity of St. John the Baptist
June 24, 2007
The Lord called me from birth; from my mother’s He gave me my name. He made of me a sharp edged sword and concealed me in the shadow of His arm. “It is too little”, He says, “for you to be My servant, the raise up the tribes of Jacob and restore the survivors of Israel. I will make you a light to the nations, that My salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen
Today is the Solemnity of the Birth of St. John the Baptist. If you look at the picture on the front of the bulletin, notice those larger images surrounding Our Lady and the Baby Jesus.
The image can be viewed here
http://www.wga.hu/art/g/gozzoli/1early/11madonn.jpg
You see St. Peter holding the “Keys”, and to the right of St. Peter is St. John the Baptist. On the other side of Our Lady and the Baby Jesus is St. Jerome dressed in red, and on the other side of him is St. Paul with a sword. This beautiful partial of an Altarpiece was chosen because today is the Solemnity of the Birth of St. John the Baptist, and Friday is the Solemnity of the Apostles, St. Peter and Paul. Notice that St. Francis is just to the left of St. Peter. Last Sunday the pope was in Assisi marking the 800th Anniversary of the Conversion of St. Francis.
Today’s feast is very important because his mission is our mission if we properly understand it. On the Church Calendar, there is the Birth of St. John the Baptist and then on September 8th, nine months after December 8th, is the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary. December 25th is the Birth of Christ, nine months after the Annunciation on March 25th. The only time on the calendar that you will see the birth of someone mentioned are these three dates I just made mention of here.
St. John the Baptist, if you will, could be considered the best man for the Bridegroom, Christ Himself. The precursor, the one who came before Christ to prepare the way, is John the Baptist, whose birth is celebrated because he is the one who indicates to us who the Messiah is.
In the Divine Office today, St. Augustine makes the point that St. John the Baptist is the greatest of the prophets found in the Old Testament, like Isaiah in the First Reading, who is a prophet. St. John the Baptist draws the line of the Prophets of Israel to a close; he is the greatest of the prophets and he even extends into the New Testament. This means that he is a bridge from the Old Testament to the New Testament. There are those who would like to excise or cut off the Old Testament and throw it away. People today speak in this manner and yet the Old Testament prefigures the New Testament, which is concealed in the Old Testament.
This figure of St. John the Baptist is someone we should study. We have heard the Gospel of his birth and circumcision. This is the man who would be called by God to a very special life of prayer in preparation for his Baptism. He is called “The Baptist” because he Baptized so many. Before he started Baptizing, he was living in the desert, subsisting on a diet of wild honey and locusts, or grasshoppers. Blah! Talk about torture! The desert is a wild and dangerous place to live, but fortunately, in the desert there is almost no cell phone coverage. [Laughter] So, he had plenty of peace and quiet.
God had called Israel to Himself to lead Egypt and He led Israel into the desert to lead them through the desert to the Promised Land, but Israel sinned again and again against the Lord…hence the forty years punishment, wondering in the desert. St. John the Baptist was not wondering aimlessly in the desert, he was there to pray and focus on God like a laser beam. In this saint, we see a man of prayer, whose prayer came before his work. His prayer guided his work, and there is no doubt that he prayed all of his life, even to the point when he witnessed to the sanctity of marriage. The king then decided to cut off his head. In the desert, St. John could focus on the prayer, in which he would hear God directing him, his life and his soul, giving him instructions if you will. He was discerning the way it was he was to go.
This is the saint who gathered many around him; many disciples or students would listen to him. So, there was a time when this solitary figure in the desert began to attract others around him. This was the good news and the bad news; the good news being that he was in the desert alone and the bad news was that he began to attract students or disciples, who wished to learn from him.
St. John began to Baptize in the River Jordan and people came from Jerusalem, Judea, and the surrounding areas in great numbers. As she stood in the river Baptizing them, they confessed their sins. This was a turning away from sin to a new life. In his new book, Pope Benedict writes this about Baptism.
Emersion in the water is about purification, about liberation from the filth of the past that burdens and distorts life. It is about beginning again, and that means is about death and resurrection, about starting life over again anew.
So we could say that is about rebirth. This is how we understand the Sacrament of Baptism and St. John’s Baptism was preparing the way for the Sacrament of Baptism. When Jesus approached St. John and requested Baptism, St. John protested by saying that Jesus should Baptize him. Our Lord insisted, saying that it should be done to fulfill all righteousness.
In the prayers of the Mass today, you will hear them make mention of the fact that when Christ was Baptized, He was not cleansed of filth and purified of sin, but He blessed the waters that would Baptize you and me and everyone else that presents themselves or, are presented for Baptism. That the Lord Baptized the waters of Baptism and opened them; He opened them to confer grace... the Life of the Most Blessed Trinity. So, St. John the Baptist is a very important figure, who points the way to Baptism and to Christ.
If you remember what the pope makes reference to in his book, that at the Baptism of Christ there are all the earmarks of a birth symbolism. The heavens are ripped open, the Holy Spirit descends, and a voice from the Heavens declares that this is His beloved Son in Whom He is well pleased. It is like the Gospel today and the naming of the child. The waters of Baptism symbolize the waters of a birth, but this is not a natural birth but a supernatural rebirth to a new calling, which is far superior to any natural calling.
St. John is most remembered for his identification; all around him were disciples who followed him and listened to him, as well as imitating him. One day he saw Christ passing by and he pointed to Christ and said,
There is the Lamb of God
These words are repeated in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in every land. Just before Holy Communion you will hear the prayer,
This is the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world.
This is a reference to St. John the Baptist and his identification of the Messiah; Jesus Who is the Son of God, the Lamb of God, and True God and True Man. This is the mission of St. John the Baptist and for this God created him. Notice too that in the First Reading and the Psalm it says,
The Lord called me from birth; from my mother’s womb He gave me my name.
The Psalm says that,
Even before I was born you knew me.
Use that argument the next time someone tells you that there are certain cases when abortion should be allowed.
”What? We get our mission from God while we are in the womb?”
Even before we are formed in the womb, as it says in Psalm 139. God knows us and He has a plan for us.
Consider this; our country has become so prone to light-switch Catholicism, the kind that you can turn on or off when it is convenient or inconvenient. The mission of St. John the Baptist, if you read the New Testament, is obvious even before he is born. He leapt for joy in the womb of his mother, St. Elizabeth, when the Blessed Virgin Mary visited her home. Expecting for just days, she’d heard the angel’s salutation and conceived the very Son of God in her womb. Jesus was just days old in the womb of Our Lady. St. John, the precursor of the Messiah leapt for joy and this is the obvious way he points out the presence of the Messiah, who is waiting to be born.
This is the mission that you and I have received in Baptism. If this is not the mission then why go to the trouble of being Baptized; why bother?
Christ is the kingdom of God; it is not a place and not an empire, this refers to a person, who is Jesus Christ. Heaven came down to earth in the Person of Jesus Christ and St. John the Baptist told everyone that He was the Lamb of God. When his disciples started to leave and follow Jesus, St. John didn’t call them back; that is why he was created and this was the mission that God had given him. This is why John was born and lived… to point to God.
I’d like to switch from St. John the Baptist to someone named for St. John the Baptist. He died in 1859 and was born just three years before the French Revolution. His name was John Baptist Marie Vianney, the Cure of Ars. Ars is a town in the south of France in the middle of nowhere. St. John Vianney was born just three years before that ignominious blot on the history of the world known as the French Revolution. Every modern problem afflicting us today can be traced back to that seismic spiritual break in France and is celebrated by many Catholics. I have no idea on what planet they live! What a terrible thing.
St. John Vianney would grow up in a France that had made the practice of the faith illegal. They would go to church in a neighbor’s barn on rare occasions when a Catholic priest in disguise would pass through. If they’d been caught it might have meant prison or death for them. It won’t be long before that happens here in the United States of America, I am sad to say, if some people have their way. I pray that I am wrong.
St. John Vianney was ordained a priest and went to the Vicar General, the bishop’s assistant, and received his first and only assignment. He would die at the age of 73 at that first and only assignment. The Vicar General told him that he was going to be the pastor, the Cure of Ars, and that where he was being sent, there was not much love for God, and he told the Cure that he must put some love for God there. Through our Baptism, that is exactly what we must do; we must point God out to others in this world.
St. John packed up his meager belongings and books and started walking toward his new assignment. He was uncertain about being on the right road and was praying and saw two young men ahead and asked their help and direction. They led him to the crest of the hill and pointed across the way to a little church in a little town called Ars. At that exact spot there has been a statue erected with three figures, one for St. John Vianney and the two young men. There is an inscription that contains the words the saint said to the two young men, which reads:
YOU HAVE SHOWN ME THE WAY TO ARS, NOW I WILL SHOW YOU THE WAY TO HEAVEN.
Isn’t that what his namesake had done centuries before? Isn’t that what St. John the Baptist said to his disciples when he told them to look at the Lamb of God? Wherever Jesus is, there is heaven.
YOU HAVE SHOWN ME THE WAY TO ARS, NOW I WILL SHOW YOU THE WAY TO HEAVEN.
St. John Vianney began to do exactly that. He was known for his great dedication to the Sacrament of Confession. Before long maybe 25,000 people a year would make the pilgrimage to Ars to have their Confessions heard by the saint in Ars. His schedule sounds like the schedules of many parents and grandparents. He got little sleep and did lots of work for the Lord. It was not uncommon for him sit in the Confessional for eighteen hours hearing Confessions. When he wasn’t in the Confessional he sought time in prayer. Like St. John the Baptist, the Cure of Ars yearned for time, time for God and time in prayer and in front of the Blessed Sacrament in the Church if possible. He said that when a person prays in this way it is like a dog resting at the feet of his master. That is such a peaceful image, isn’t it? When we pray before the Blessed Sacrament it is so natural that there should be such a union.
Again and again, St. John Vianney had to pull his people away from the world and into Church. When he got to Ars the people were occupied with work, and when they weren’t working they were drinking and dancing.
I just saw on the drudge report yesterday that this weekend in Glastonbury England they are having some kind of super concert. Tickets are necessary and of course everything you eat or drink is purchased. They are not exactly giving these things away. Anyway, it has rained and rained. The picture on drudge shows the people at the concert covered from head to toe in mud. I guess they are just all telling each other,
“Aren’t we having fun?”
If you drink and dance, dance and drink, drink and dance, then I guess that is your definition of fun.
“Oh well Father, they are young”
They could be old too and they would still be wrong! Again you see the fascination with drink and dancing. At an earlier Mass today and right at the Consecration, right at the moment when the Holy Spirit was changing the host into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ, everything was quiet and I elevated the Host and just as I did so, right past the Church went somebody’s car and you heard, “BOOM, BA BOOM BA BOOM” Isn’t that someone who is fixated on dancing? I am sure if I told the guy that he would say, “HUH?” I am sure he would say that! [Laughter]
St. John Vianney had to get them out of the taverns and into the Church to served God and not the world. Jesus it Himself, you cannot serve God and mammon. The Cure of Ars, in the same line said,
If people would do for God what they do for the world, what a great number of Christians would go to Heaven.
You either belong entirely to God or entirely to the world. But you know what? I am going to be that first and unique person that is going to do both, uh huh. Maybe you are thinking that you will be the first but, I’m sorry, I am ahead of you and I am up here on this platform so…It is ridiculous; 2000 years have gone by and nobody has been able to do it but, I am going to do it.
St. John marveled at those who accepted his counsel. In those days there was a farmer who spent his life toiling, one job after another. He was able to work an incredible amount. The Cure of Ars knew the secret. Everyday on the way out to the field, the farmer stopped by the Church, leaned his rake against the Church and went in and prayed. After a considerable amount of time, he left the Church, picked up his rake, and went out to the fields. On the way home he repeated the exact same thing. This went on for years and one day the saint told the farmer that he noticed him praying in this manner. He asked the farmer if he would mind telling him what he said when he went into the Church to pray. The man looked surprised and shocked, He said,
“What do I say? I don’t say anything; I look at Him and He looks at me.”
Anyone who believes that prayer before the Blessed Sacrament must involve words could learn from this farmer, who could do incredible work because he drew deeply from Heaven locked away in the Tabernacle. St. John Vianney once wrote,
Remember what Our Lord said to the Apostles in Gethsemane?We should consider those moments spent before the Blessed Sacrament as the happiest moments of our lives.
Could you not spend an hour with me?
You mean pray for a whole hour? We know that the Apostles fell asleep in the Garden; they were so worn out from grief, is what the Gospel says. Yeah, sounds like somebody is covering up.
“Father, I couldn’t possibly concentrate for an hour.”
Really? Remember that tonight when you are flipping through the channels. Right? If you cannot come to Church and pray because of your schedule, obligations, or distance, there is nothing stopping you from making a Spiritual Communion, a Holy Hour from your home. The first thing you do is turn all your electronics off and settle down and pray, joining your heart with the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Tabernacle. The two statues over there, the Immaculate Heart and the Sacred Heart, symbolize how Our Lady’s heart was always beating in tandem with the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
You may notice that when you begin to pray at home, even when it is quiet, you become like a little child on a long road trip. Two or three minutes go by and you say, “Are we there yet?” “Is it over?” Just to make sure you don’t go past and hour and one minute you set a clock and then another one in case the first one fails. We don’t want to get to serious about this prayer stuff, do we? Isn’t this the truth? When we go to pray isn’t it like an animal trying to release itself from a trap? Yet, we hear St. John Vianney talk so lovingly about prayer and St. John the Baptist spending his time in prayer.
I know some kids who complain to their parents and say,
“We pray TOO much! That is what is wrong with the world; all you people out there praying, you are ruining it for the rest of us! That is the problem with the world, praying too much!”
What planet do they live on? The fact is that people think Jesus is just their buddy or friend. Here is a scenario for you. The kids are walking with their parents through town and a man comes up and says,
“Joe, how are you doing? It is good to see you! I remember back in college that we were the best of friends. Oh it is so good to see you. Are these your kids; they look just like you.”
Well, that is what is supposed to happen, right?
“It has been 20-25 years since I have seen you and I miss you. You are my best friend. Oh I gotta go, there is my bus.”
So the guy goes off to his bus and the kids ask their dad what state the man lives in and the dad tells them he lives just around the corner from them. Isn’t that like someone who has access to prayer and never lifts a finger?
“Oh I love you God; who loves you more than me? Uh, just give me the short list.”
St. John Vianney said that prayer is nothing else but union with God.
That is because we are united with heaven Himself; Jesus is the Kingdom of God. St. John Vianney was named for St. John the Baptist, who went about saying,In this intimate union God and the soul are fused together like two pieces of wax that no one can ever pull apart. This union of God with a tiny creature is a lovely thing; it is happiness beyond understanding. My little children your hearts are small but prayer stretches them and makes them capable of loving God. Through prayer we receive a foretaste of heaven and something of paradise comes down upon us.
Look! There is the Lamb of God.
That was his mission in life.
As you leave these doors today you enter a world that is thirsting for God…dying for God, and the world doesn’t even know it. They get their fill of drinking and dancing and they don’t realize
that they are yearning to be filled by the only One Who can fill the soul, the One Who made us and knew us even before we were fashioned in the womb. If we go out into the world and we remind people of Jesus, directing them by the way we order our lives and raise our children, then they will be hearing us just as the followers of St. John the Baptist heard him when he pointed to the Lamb of God. They will see heaven in some of our actions and words and will be drawn to Christ through us. This was the mission of St. John the Baptist and this is the mission that God has given to us if we only listen.
The Lord called me from birth; from my mother’s He gave me my name. He made of me a sharp edged sword and concealed me in the shadow of His arm. “It is too little”, He says, “for you to be My servant, the raise up the tribes of Jacob and restore the survivors of Israel. I will make you a light to the nations, that My salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen