Homily for Memorial of Passion of John the Baptist

Homily for the Memorial of the
Passion of St. John the Baptist

August 29, 2023
Jer 1: 17-19
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, New Rochelle

“I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord” (Jer 1:19).

Jeremiah on the ruins of Jerusalem

(Horace Vernet)

The passage from Jeremiah was chosen for this memorial of the martyrdom of John the Baptist because Jeremiah, like John, suffered at the hands of the public authorities for preaching the prophetic message given to him by God.

In the collect we prayed that “we, too, may fight hard for the confession of what [God teaches].”  Most of us were teachers, catechists of one sort or another regardless of our subject matter, bearers of the Gospel at least implicitly.  In fact, we still are.  You are, even at St. Joseph.

By your faith, your companionship with each other and the staff, your cheerfulness, your kindness, and your patience, you continue to testify that the Lord is with you and you know that he’ll deliver you.  He won’t deliver you from public wrath, which isn’t a likely issue here; nor from the travails of age and bodily decline, which is an issue; but from the grasp of the Evil One, from “the gates of the netherworld,” as we heard in Sunday’s gospel (Matt 16:18).  We believe in our deliverance by Christ from the consequences of both our moral and our physical frailty.