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St John’s Day
“We are going to celebrate St John’s Day, John the Baptist, the Lord's forerunner, the friend of the bridegroom, with complete chastity, with total sobriety…….'And so, brothers, as I said, we shall be celebrating tomorrow, in the Lord's name, the feast of Saint John the Baptist. In seven days’ time, that is on Saturday, we shall also be celebrating the birthday of the holy martyrs Peter and Paul.'" – Hill, E., The Works of Saint Augustine. A Translation for the 21st Century, vol. III 8, Sermons 273-305A on the Saints (New City Press, 1994). Sermon 279 Since the early days, the church has recognized that there were ordinary people who lived extraordinary lives of virtue, courage, and dedication to Christ. The people view saints as spiritual heroes and heavenly companions whose lives inspire faith, offer moral guidance, and demonstrate the ultimate triumph of God's love. The church has assigned a day of feasting or celebration to each saint based on events of their lives, their birth or death, or simply a day of agreement. In the case of John the Baptist, there is a lot of conflicting information as to why June 24 was chosen. The easiest is prescribed by simple math. In St. Luke's Gospel 1:24-27 we are told that, 24 After this his (Zechariaha) wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion. 25 “The Lord has done this for me,” she said. “In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.” 26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. So, given that Christmas Day is Dec 25, the Annunciation to Mary is March 25, during which time Elizabeth, her cousin, was six months pregnant, meaning that her son John was conceived in September and was born in June. The math points to two dates that could have been chosen, September for his conception or June for his birth, June was the winner. (There are MANY other theories why June was chosen, but for the purposes of this post I am going with the math!) After Gabriel announced the miracle to Mary he went on to say, “And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God” (Luke 1:36-37). If we take these words as indicative of the Father’s plan of salvation, then John’s mission was intimately connected to that of Jesus. This is further confirmed when Mary travels in haste to her cousin Elizabeth to help her in the final months of her pregnancy. At the sound of Mary’s greeting, the unborn infant, John, leaped for joy in Elizabeth’s womb. Of this event, Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches that John was sanctified in the womb at that moment and prepared for his sacred mission of preparing the way for Jesus’ ministry. Saint Thomas even goes so far as to speculate about that moment of sanctification as follows: “Perhaps also in this child the use of reason and will was so far accelerated that while in his mother’s womb he was able to acknowledge, believe, and consent, whereas in other children we have to wait for these things till they grow older: this again I count as a miraculous result of the divine power.” (Summa Theologica 3.27.6) John’s birth was surrounded by mystery, amazement, awe, and intrigue. The reaction to John’s birth is recorded this way by Saint Luke, “Then fear came upon all their neighbors, and all these matters were discussed throughout the hill country of Judea. All who heard these things took them to heart, saying, ‘What, then, will this child be?’ For surely the hand of the Lord was with him.” (1:65-66) We mark the birth of Saint John the Baptist today, June 24th, and reflect on the divine intention of John’s witness. God’s blessing on Zechariah and Elizabeth displays the “long view” that God brings to Creation. The significant role that John played in the history of salvation is unique and was set in motion long before he was even conceived! John is the last voice of the Old Covenant, the close of the Age of Law. Jesus is the first voice of the New Covenant, the beginning of the Age of Grace. Accordingly, John is born to an elderly, barren woman, born when it is really too late for her to be having a child, while Jesus is born to a young virgin, born when it is really too early for her to be having a child. John is announced (and conceived) at the autumnal equinox, when the leaves are dying and falling from the trees. Jesus is announced (and conceived) at the vernal equinox, when the green buds are bursting forth on the trees and there are signs of new life everywhere. John is born when the days are longest, and from his birth on they grow steadily shorter. Jesus is born when the days are shortest, and from his birth on they grow steadily longer. John speaks truly when he says of Jesus, "He must increase, but I must decrease." Almighty God, by whose providence your servant John the Baptist was wonderfully born, and sent to prepare the way of your Son our Savior by preaching repentance: Make us so to follow his teaching and holy life, that we may truly repent according to his preaching; and, following his example, constantly speak the truth, boldly rebuke vice, and patiently suffer for the truth's sake; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. Lesser Feasts and Fasts 229 Feasting, Fr. Bill+
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Pentecost Life
Pentecost, the long green season, is an opportunity to think anew about the ebb and flow of your life. Events will come and go, good things and bad things will happen, life will go on. Pentecost is a time to pay more attention to life with all its ups and downs. There are many ways of doing this: prayer and meditation, reading and praying the Holy Scripture, and striving to see and understand existence differently. Here are a few poems written by Jessica Powers (1905-1988), a Discalced Carmelite nun and member of the Carmel of the Mother of God, Pewaukee, Wisconsin. She is hailed as one of America's greatest religious poets, through which we can deepen our Pentecost experience. This poem lives in the imagery of the house you live in and the suggestion of changing the way you experience that house, but it is actually about your soul. Strive to hear her encouragement to reorder that which you thought was unchangeable. The House at Rest On a dark night Kindled in love with yearnings -- Oh, happy chance! -- I went forth unobserved, My house being now at rest. – St. John of the Cross How does one hush one’s house, each proud possessive wall, each sighing rafter, the rooms made restless with remembered laughter or wounding echoes, the permissive doors, the stairs that vacillate from up to down, windows that bring in color and event from countryside or town, oppressive ceilings and complaining floors? The house must first of all accept the night. Let it erase the walls and their display, impoverish the rooms till they are filled with humble silences; let clocks be stilled and all the selfish urgencies of day. Midnight is not the time to greet a guest. Caution the doors against both foes and friends, and try to make the windows understand their unimportance when the daylight ends. Persuade the stairs to patience, and deny the passages their aimless to and fro. Virtue it is that puts a house at rest. How well repaid that tenant is, how blest who, when the call is heard, is free to take his kindled heart and go. The Garments of God God sits on a chair of darkness in my soul. He is God alone, supreme in His majesty. I sit at His feet, a child in the dark beside Him; my joy is aware of His glance and my sorrow is tempted to nest on the thought that His face is turned from me. He is clothed in the robes of His mercy, voluminous garments– not velvet or silk and affable to the touch, but fabric strong for a frantic hand to clutch, and I hold to it fast with the fingers of my will. Here is my cry of faith, my deep avowal to the Divinity that I am but dust. Here is the loud profession of my trust. I need not go abroad to the hills of speech or the hinterlands of music for a crier to walk in my soul where all is still. I have this potent prayer through good or ill: here in the dark I clutch the garments of God. To Live with the Spirit To live with the Spirit of God is to be a listener. It is to keep the vigil of mystery, earthless and still. One leans to catch the stirring of the Spirit, strange as the wind’s will. The soul that walks where the wind of the Spirit blows turns like a wandering weather-vane toward love. It may lament like Job or Jeremiah, echo the wounded hart, the mateless dove. It may rejoice in spaciousness of meadow that emulates the freedom of the sky. Always it walks in waylessness, unknowing; it has cast down forever from its hand the compass of the whither and the why. To live with the Spirit of God is to be a lover. It is becoming love, and like to Him toward Whom we strain with metaphors of creatures: fire-sweep and water-rush and the wind’s whim. The soul is all activity, all silence; and though it surges Godward to its goal, it holds, as moving earth holds sleeping noonday, the peace that is the listening of the soul. The soul is all activity, all silence; and though it surges Godward to its goal, it holds, as moving earth holds sleeping noonday, the peace that is the listening of the soul. Fr. Bill+ "He who neglects contemplation is deprived of the vision of the light of God; he who is carried away with worry and allows his thoughts to be crushed by the tumult of the things of the world is condemned to the absolute impossibility of penetrating the secrets of the invisible God."
Blessed Maurus Magnentius Rabanus It's getting hotter, the grass is green…and then brown, the trees are green, the pool is open, the beach/mountains/river beckon. Family vacation plans are being finalized as life shifts from the busy-ness of the school year to the busy-ness of the summer. Even for those empty-nesters who are not driven by school trends, summer affords a special opportunity for down time. Down time takes many forms. An added block of “me” time, sleeping later, day trips, and full-blown vacations are a time to clear the mind and spirit, to reset the system with what really matters—love and family. Christian or not, the summer season adds a measure of rest and relaxation to our lives. This is why summer is the perfect time to shift into a contemplative mode to calmly consider the presence of God. The celebrations of Christmas and Easter have been wonderful, but all too often the Emmanuel (God with us) of Christmas is convoluted by wrapping paper and tape, and the Messiah of Easter is obscured by eggs and bows and retired as the season passes. When Blessed Maurus Magnentius Rabanus, an 8th century French Benedictine Monk, theologian, poet, encyclopedist and military writer, Abbot of Fulda and ArchBishop of Mainz (central West Germany), wrote about contemplation in his treatise De videndo Deo (On Seeing God), he too was afflicted with much to do, and he understood that even the most devout can find the simple presence of God elusive amidst the busy-ness of life (even a Holy life!). The words above and here were aimed at his Benedictine Brothers, but they are appropriate for us today: “to contemplate God is to be open to the mystery of God’s presence.” Summer is for relaxation and release, a time to slow down, to vacate, but don’t go on vacation without God. Contemplate! Don’t just take a good book, take The Good Book! Don’t just think about your life, think about His! Don’t resolve what to do, resolve who to be in His company! Ask God the big questions and contemplate God’s presence, and you will know God’s answer. "He who neglects contemplation is deprived of the vision of the light of God.” Make it an enlightening summer vacation! Contemplate God! Resolved and thinking, Fr. Bill+ Do you not know that you are a temple of God
and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? (1 Cor. 3:16) So how literally are we to take this bold proclamation made by St. Paul to the Corinthian church? The answer to that question isn’t found in one place, it is the living expression of all of Scripture! Jesus declares, “You have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within you” (1 John 2:27), and the witness of the Apostles in the Book of Acts is a witness to that truth. The personal indwelling of the infinite, eternal Holy Spirit in the believer is such an amazing blessing and privilege that the mind never wholly grasps it. Sadly, the daily succession of joys, sorrows, temptations and trials produces various reactions in us often without stirring our awareness that God is in residence. How would those events have changed if the Holy Spirit was invited to actively participate? It is a divine paradox, and a blessed one, that it is the same Holy Spirit who is helping us to be aware that the Holy Spirit is helping us! We recognize the hand of God by the hand of God! This is part of the divine circle of love. How wonderful and loving is God to care so much for us. One of the greatest joys of life is being aware that God is present in the moment as our companion, teacher, and guide. We are now in the liturgical season of Pentecost—“Ordinary Time,” or the “Long Green Season,” as it is referred to. Liturgical Green reflects creation itself and the creation event of Genesis 1. “Ordinary Time” reminds us that the presence of God—the indwelling of the Holy Spirit—is a common, usual, constant, regular, ORDINARY reality in the life of the believer. Since the reality of the Holy Spirit acting in your life is an eternal truth, begin each day by giving each new moment to God (it is His anyway!). Be consciously aware and actively present with God through what ever the day brings, and what the day will bring is the presence of God! Seeking God first and making God first will fill you with the blessing of joy and peace that our Lord promised you. Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? Yes, Lord God! Come Holy Spirit, Come! That I may be wholly yours! Fr. Bill+ |
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August 2026
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