Wednesday, June 24 - Nativity of St. John the
Baptist. Jesus called John the
greatest of all those who had preceded him so he received special veneration.
Being the precursor of our Lord, he was accorded the same honor as the first
great saints of the Christian era, although he belonged to the Old
Covenant. Ordinarily the Church observes
the day of a saint's death as his feast, because that day marks his entrance
into heaven but it was the firm belief among the faithful that John was freed
from original sin at the moment when his mother met the Blessed Virgin and was
"filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb". It was St John, the last of the prophets who
baptized Jesus at the place at the Jordan where the children of the Exodus were
believed to have crossed over into the Promised Land. In the course of John's
preaching, he criticized the immorality of King Herod's court, and of his
marital situation with Herodias, his niece and the former wife of his
half-brother, Philip. The infuriated Herodias plotted against his life and was
able to trick Herod into beheading him.
