the Passion of St. John the Baptist
August 29,
2019
Nativity, Washington, D.C.
Writing to the
Thessalonians—in the oldest component of the New Testament—St. Paul links his
own “life” with these Christians’ “standing firm in the Lord” (1 Thes 3:8),
i.e., that they “increase and abound in love for one another and for all”
(3:12), that they be “blameless in holiness before our God and Father” (3:13).
We celebrate today the
faithfulness of St. John the Baptist. He
“stood firm in the Lord,” proclaiming in his preaching what God expected of
every faithful Jew and denouncing public and private corruption. Holding firmly to the truth is a form of
love, as you know from your experience as children being raised by loving but
firm parents, and then trying to be loving and firm parents yourselves.
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Herod's Feast & the Beheading of St. John the Baptist
(Giovanni Baronzio)
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In a homily for this feast,
quoted in today’s Liturgy of the Hours, St. Bede preached: “His persecutors had demanded not that he
should deny Christ, but only that he should keep silent about the truth."[1]
St. John Paul II’s most
fundamental encyclical is probably Veritatis splendor, “The Splendor of
the Truth.” If “truth” is nothing more
than a mental concept, without connection to reality—that’s the premise of
transgenderism, for instance—then we deny reality, we invite chaos and a life
of “every man for himself” and the rule of those with the most power rather
than rule by truth and right.
So it is that Christ’s Church
continues to proclaim the truth even when it’s not politically correct, or when
certain politicians and organizations would confine our opinions to our church
buildings—truths about the human dignity of the unborn, of immigrants, of
racial and ethnic minorities, of those in prisons; about the meaning of human
sexuality and its expressions; about moral and immoral ways of conceiving human
beings and issues related to that; about lab experiments on the genetic make-up
of human beings; about war and peace.
On a much smaller scale, we
who follow Christ must strive to know what’s true, what’s right, and then to
live and speak that way as best we can—in our families, our work, our
recreation and social interactions, in our voting. Thus shall we, like St. John the Baptist,
“make straight the paths of the Lord” (Prayer over the Gifts), who continues
coming into our world as our redeemer.
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