This is a republished reflection for the Feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist.
Today's great feast, coming as it does six months, one day prior to Christmas Day, is only one of three in the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church that commemorates a physical birth (or Nativity). Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Nativity in Bethlehem in celebrated on Christmas Day, December 25. Our Lady Nativity is celebrated on September 8. And Our Lord's Precursor, the son of Saint Elizabeth, Saint John the Baptist, is privileged to have his own Nativity celebrated this very day. This is a tremendous feast day in the life of the Catholic Church.
Saint John the Baptist, the last of the Old Testament prophets, prepared the way for the coming of Our Lord prior to the assumption of His Public Ministry. Freed from Original Sin in the womb of his mother, Saint Elizabeth, who was Saint Anne's cousin, at the moment of Our Lady's Visitation, Saint John the Baptist preached fearlessly to convert sinners from their sinful ways and to prepare them to accept his Cousin, God Incarnate, as their Redeemer. He also knew that he had to decrease in stature in the world as Our Lord increased following His symbolic baptism in the Jordan River, during which, of course, God the Father sent a dove, symbolizing God the Holy Ghost, spoke to tell us in no uncertain terms, "This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3: 17), a proclamation that would God the Father repeated at Our Lord's Transfiguration (Matthew 17: 5).
Saint John the Baptist fearlessly proclaimed the truth. He lost his head for doing so. In like manner, of course, we must proclaim the truth, doing so out of fidelity to Our Lord as He has revealed Himself to His true Church, and in true Charity for the eternal good of others, recognizing at all times that we are but weak vessels of clay, full of faults and failings, who must make much reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary for our sins.
It is not easy to speak truth to those in power. Saint John the Baptist knew this.
Those in power, such as King Herod the Tetrarch, who was married illicitly to his brother's wife even though his brother was still very much alive, frequently believe themselves to be beyond criticism and that each of their decisions are binding upon the consciences of all others, a power that Our Lord has given exclusively to true popes, who can indeed bind our consciences.
Those in civil power, however, tend to think of themselves as demigods whose musings on this or that subject carry great significance. No matter who the President of the United States of America is, for example, it is invariably the case that some sort variation of one false, naturalistic presupposition after another is supposed to be accepted by the populace as the foundation for the common good domestically and for peace internationally. These "demigods" can't possibly be wrong, of course. They believe that their shallow words and empty and sometimes contradictory statements are received from on high (actually, their words and actions come from below!) and anyone who dares to dissent from them is suspect of being a "domestic terrorist."
Finally, I spent most all of yesterday, the Feast of Sacred Heart of Jesus, reviewing the text of Associate Justice Samuel Alito's opinion for the Court in the case of Thomas E. Dobbs, Mississippi State Health Officer v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, June 24, 2022, that overturned the Court's unconstitutional and immoral decision in the case of Roe v. Wade, January 22, 1973. A protracted commentary will be written that, although it will repeat many of the points I have made so many times in the psat, will be a new composition based upon an exegesis of the Alito opinion, which rendered a correct decision about the unconstitutionality of Roe v. Wade and provided an invaluable correction to the false historical narrative used by the late Associate Justice Harry Blackmun in that decision but it is still nevertheless fatally flawed in its concession that the "people" are "free" to "decide" anything about the killing of innocent human life except what sort of punishment should be meted out to those who kill for a living.
As noted in a brief morning update yesterday, error can never be the foundation of any kind of just social order. I hope to have part one of my commentary on the Alito opinion for the Court published Monday, and will then follow up with commentaries on the concurring in part and dissenting in part opinion of the Chief Institutionalist, John Glover Roberts, Jr., who acted entirely according to the expectations I had of him when George Walker Bush nominated him in 2005, and then, in due course, the opinions of the dissenters, most notably the emotional screed issued by the a-constitutional, a-historical, amoral, mass of raw emotions named Associate Justic Sonia Sotomayor. The sequenced articles will be placed into an anthology of my commentaries on various Supreme Court decisions.
Another commentary about Saint John the Baptist can be read by clicking: Saint John the Baptist: Everything That Jorge Mario Bergoglio Is Not and Will Never Be.
Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.
