Saint John the Baptist

Saint John the Baptist, son of the priest Zechariah and of Elizabeth, is the Forerunner of the Lord: the prophet who prepared the way for Jesus, baptized him in the Jordan, and pointed him out as the Lamb of God. The Church celebrates the solemnity of his birth on June 24 and commemorates his martyrdom on August 29.

According to the Gospel of Saint Luke, his parents were righteous and advanced in years, and Elizabeth was barren. While Zechariah was offering incense in the temple, the angel Gabriel announced to him the birth of a son. Zechariah did not believe and was struck mute. When Mary, Elizabeth’s relative, visited her, the child leaped for joy in his mother’s womb. On the day of the circumcision his father wrote on a tablet, “John is his name,” and his speech was restored.

The child lived in the desert until the day of his appearance before Israel. Under the Emperor Tiberius, according to Benedict XVI around the year 27 or 28, he began to call people to conversion and to administer a baptism of repentance in the Jordan; hence the name by which he is known. He wore clothing made of camel’s hair and lived on locusts and wild honey. To the people, tax collectors and soldiers among them, he gave simple directions: share with those in need, collect no more than is due, do no one harm. Asked whether he was the Messiah, he answered that he was not worthy to untie the strap of the sandals of the one who was coming after him.

When Jesus came to the Jordan, John at first was reluctant to baptize him, but then consented. Later he pointed him out with the words, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,” and two of his disciples, Andrew among them, followed Jesus. Jesus said that among those born of women no one greater than John the Baptist had arisen, and called him the Elijah who was to come. The Catechism says that John surpasses all the prophets and is the last of them.

John rebuked the tetrarch Herod Antipas, telling him that it was not lawful for him to have Herodias, his brother’s wife, and Herod had him imprisoned. At Herod’s birthday banquet the daughter of Herodias danced before the guests and, at her mother’s prompting, asked for John’s head. The king had him beheaded in prison, and his disciples buried his body. The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus also writes that Herod feared John’s influence over the people and had him put to death in the fortress of Machaerus. The years of John’s birth and death are not known.

John has been venerated since antiquity, without any formal canonization. As early as the middle of the fourth century his head was venerated at Sebaste in Samaria. The date of his birth was linked to Christmas, because Elizabeth was in her sixth month when Mary conceived Jesus. Saint Augustine saw a sign in this: John is born when the days begin to grow shorter, Christ when they begin to grow longer, in keeping with John’s words, “He must increase; I must decrease.” The Church honors him as the patron of those condemned to death and of those imprisoned for bearing witness to the faith.