June 24: Feast of St. John Baptist

Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation

We will meditate to-morrow upon the zeal which St. John Baptist exercised: 1st, in sanctifying himself; 2d, in sanctifying others. We will then make the resolution: 1st, not to love the world, and to prefer to it family life and the charms of our home; 2d, to endeavor, like St. John, every day to make progress in the virtues, especially in humility and mortification; 3d, to influence every one surrounding us for good, by our example and our counsels. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the eulogium Our Lord pronounced upon St. John: “He was a burning and a shining light” (John v. 35).

Meditation for the Morning

Let us adore God announcing to Zacharias, by the ministry of the holy angel Gabriel, the birth of John Baptist, and, six months later, sanctifying him in the womb of his mother, at the voice of the Blessed Virgin. All rejoiced at his birth (Luke i. 14), and asked each other, “What will this wonderful child be at some future day?” (Luke i. 66.) Let us thank Our Lord for having, thirty years afterwards, resolved this question, by proclaiming St. John Baptist the greatest among the children of men, a prophet, and more than a prophet, a new Elias, a burning and shining light. Let us at the same time glorify St. John Baptist as being him of whom the prophets said: “Behold, I send My angel before Thy face, who shall prepare the way before Thee. A voice of one crying in the desert, Prepare ye the way of the Lord” (Mark i. 2, 3). Let us honor him as the angel of the great council, the friend of the Spouse, the patriarch of the hermits, the sacred link between the old and new alliance, the intrepid preacher of truth, the martyr of chastity, which he defended at the peril of his life, and let us ask for grace to imitate his virtues.

FIRST POINT

The Zeal of St. John for his own Sanctification

John Baptist, understanding the holiness to which God called him, retired into the desert to occupy himself solely with this great affair: to forget there the world and all that passes in it, and to give to his sanctification all his thoughts and all his moments. And what does he do in this retreat, far from men, and alone with God? “The child grew,” says the Gospel, “and was strengthened in spirit” (Luke i. 80). He grew in the knowledge of God, of His perfections and His infinite amiability, His law and His oracles; he grew in the knowledge of himself, which is the basis of all virtue, which teaches man to count himself as nothing and to look upon God as all; he grew in the knowledge of the world, by the serious reflection which makes a man remark and observe, by meditation and the habit of thought. In growing thus, he was strengthened, on the one side, in the spirit of faith, of charity, of zeal, of all the virtues of which he was to give to the world lessons and examples; on the other side, in resistance to all the passions of which the heart is the source, to all the vices of which it contains the germs, to seductions and the dangers of the world. God does not call us all, as He did St. John, to a life of retreat, but He calls us all to be saints; to use the world as not using it—that is to say, not to make use of its spirit or its maxims; to separate ourselves from it, in so far as our position will permit, not to frequent it or mingle in its dangerous pleasures and in its corrupting feasts; to live alone with God in the secret of domestic life, in the practice of our religious duties. To the life of retreat St. John added the practice of the most sublime virtues. How mortified he was! He took his rest upon the bare ground, and for his raiment had only the skin of a camel, that is to say, a coarse hair shirt; he fed upon locusts and a little wild honey, and he had nothing to drink except the water of the torrents, which made the Saviour be told that he seemed neither to eat nor drink (Luke vii. 33). It is thus that he preaches to all that we cannot be saved unless we die to ourselves, each according to his condition, his temperament, and the duties of his state. What humility he showed! The Jews, impressed by the splendor of His holiness, sent an embassy to him to ask if he were not the Messias; and, without being swelled with pride at the high opinion entertained of him, utterly rejecting the praises addressed to him, he replies that he is nothing more than a sound which beats upon the air; that he is not worthy to untie the strings of the shoes of Him who he is taken to be, of Him who will increase and grow, whilst as to himself, he never can make himself small enough (John iii. 30). And what charity was his! He is, said Jesus Christ, a burning and a shining light. Lastly, how entire was his conformity to the will of God! Every one hastened after Jesus Christ to see the miracles which He worked, and to hear the words which came from His mouth. St. John deprived himself of this enjoyment, which seemed to be so holy a one; the will of God had placed him in the desert; he would not leave it till he had received a command to do so. What admirable holiness, and how far are we from possessing it!

SECOND POINT

The Zeal of St. John for the Sanctification of Others

Every day St. John preaches energetically on the borders of the Jordan, whither his great virtue attracts the Jews. He reproves sin, he baptizes sinners, he converts soldiers, and instructs them in their duties with wisdom and marvellous discretion. He does not stop there; he goes in search of Herod until he finds him in the midst of his guards, reproaches him for his sin of incest, and urges him to put an end to so horrible a scandal (Mark vi. 18); and, at the same time, and in a most admirable manner, he tempers his strong and generous zeal with so much prudence and gentleness, that he does a great deal of good, even to this wicked prince (Ibid. 20). So much zeal did indeed deserve the glory of martyrdom. Heaven bestowed upon him the grace of it, and he died a martyr of chastity. Alas! if we had as much zeal for the salvation of our brethren, what good we should do them by our example, our counsels, our gentle insinuations, and all the other means which we are able to use when we love.

Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.