JOHN THE BAPTIST (died ca30)
Called
in the Bible "the voice crying in the wilderness"
and "the man sent from God," John the Baptist was
said by Jesus to have been the greatest of all the prophets.
According to the New Testament, he was born to Eliza-beth, cousin of
the Blessed Virgin Mary, and Zachariah, a temple priest, in their old
age, an event that had been foretold by an angel.
In about AD27 John began preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, and baptising his followers — including Jesus himself — in the River Jordan. His message was that people should repent because the kingdom of heaven was at hand.
John’s public criticism of Herod Antipas for his incestuous marriage to Herodias, his brother’s wife, resulted in his imprisonment. He was executed without trial because of a trick: when Salome, Herodias’ daughter, had delighted Herod by her dancing he agreed to grant her any wish. At the urging of her mother she insisted on receiving the head of John the Baptist. This was duly granted to her.
In the New Testament John hails Jesus as the Lamb of God, a reference to Isaiah’s image of the lamb led to the slaughter to bear the sins of mankind, and perhaps also to the Jewish custom of sacrificing a lamb at Passover. This image was taken up in apostolic writings and by the Church, and St. John the Baptist is frequently depicted holding a lamb.
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Collect Almighty God, by whose providence your servant John the Baptist was wonderfully born, and sent to prepare the way of your Son our Saviour by the preaching of repentance: lead us to repent according to his preaching and, after his example, constantly to speak the truth, boldly to rebuke vice, and patiently to suffer for the truth's sake; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. |
Feast Days - Birth: 24th June; Beheading: 29th August
Patronages - Lambs; baptism; the monastic life; the Knights Hospitaller.
Emblems - Lamb; slender cross.