The Nativity of Saint John the Baptist: His Name Will Be John

Today, Saturday, June 24, 2023, is the Feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s precursor who called sinners to repentance as he was preparing the way for Our Lord to assume His Public Ministry.

Saint John the Baptist, who had been freed from Original Sin at the moment of the Visitation, lived an austere life of penance and mortification as the last Prophet of the Old Testament. His efforts to call sinners to repentance spared no one, including King Herod the Tetrarch, the son of the notorious Herod the Great who had sought to kill the Infant Jesus shortly after His birth in Bethlehem. Our Lord Himself and His Most Blessed Mother are the only others who have a feast day in honor of their Nativity. Saint John the Baptist is thus fittingly honored today because he was the self-denying Precursor of the Divine Redeemer who realized that he had to decrease while his Divine Cousin increased.

Saint John the Baptist was praised by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Himself with these words:

[11] Amen I say to you, there hath not risen among them that are born of women a greater than John the Baptist: yet he that is the lesser in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. [12] And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away. [13]For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John: [14] And if you will receive it, he is Elias that is to come. [15] He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. (Matthew 11: 11-15.)

Just by the way, you understand, Our Lord was endorsing Saint John the Baptist's life of penance and mortification that is scoffed at by the conciliar revolutionaries, including Bergoglio on countless occasions. Just a little "by the way," you see.

Saint John the Baptist’s remonstrations with King Herod the Tetrarch stand in stark contrast to the outright "openness" of Jorge Mario Bergoglio" and the assembly of spiritual thieves that he has presided over during the past seventy-five months, eleven days and that is preparing for a pagan hootenanny in less than four months to use the Amazonia region as a pretext for finishing off the remaining vestiges of Catholicism in the counterfeit church of conciliarism once and for all. These shamelessly craven servants of the adversary do not believe that it is at all necessary to denounce sin as sin with the same prophetic courage as displayed by Saint John the Baptist. As the last of the Old Testament Prophets, Saint John the Baptist was merely carrying on the example and the work of prophets such as Amos and Osee, Nathan, Gad, Isaias, Ezechiel, and Jeremias.

The following words of Amos were particularly harsh and stinging concerning the infidelity of the Chosen People and their leaders:

[11] Therefore thus saith the Lord God: The land shall be in tribulation, and shall be compassed about: and thy strength shall be taken away from thee, and thy houses shall be spoiled. [12] Thus saith the Lord: As if a shepherd should get out of the lion' s mouth two legs, or the tip of the ear: so shall the children of Israel be taken out that dwell in Samaria, in a piece of a bed, and in the couch of Damascus. [13] Hear ye, and testify in the house of Jacob, saith the Lord the God of hosts: [14] That in the day when I shall begin to visit the transgressions of Israel, I will visit upon him, and upon the altars of Bethel: and the horns of the altars shall be cut off, and shall fall to the ground. [15] And I will strike the winter house with the summer house: and the houses of ivory shall perish, and many houses shall be destroyed, saith the Lord. (Amos 3: 11-15.)

Not exactly the warm and cheery reaffirmations that Jorge Mario Bergoglio and his crew of vipers give to unrepentant sinners who will never rest until they eliminate all public and perhaps even private criticism of their pernicious ways. The kind of warnings given by Amos against Israel for her infidelities is used by Bergoglio and fiends about "global warming" and "saving the planet," not about saving souls.

By contrast, of course, Saint John the Baptist’s father, Zachary, was told of his son’s truly prophetic mission by Saint Gabriel the Archangel: 

And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And Zachary seeing him, was troubled, and fear fell upon him.

But the angel said to him: Fear not, Zachary, for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John: and thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice in his nativity.

For he shall be great before the Lord; and shall drink no wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb. And he shall convert many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias; that he may turn the hearts of the fathers unto the children, and the incredulous to the wisdom of the just, to prepare unto the Lord a perfect people.

And Zachary said to the angel: Whereby shall I know this? for I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.

And the angel answering, said to him: I am Gabriel, who stand before God; and am sent to speak to thee, and to bring thee these good things. And behold, thou shalt be dumb until the day wherein these things shall come to pass because thou hast not believed my words, which shall be fulfilled in their time. (Lk 1: 11-20)

Zachary’s being rendered dumb until after the Nativity of his son, Saint John the Baptist, the cousin and precursor of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity made Man, is quite a contrast to the fact that his son preached eloquently and clearly even in the world. Saint John the Baptist leapt for joy in his mother’s womb when he heard the sound of Our Lady’s voice at the moment of the Visitation, which event we celebrate on July 2 (for reasons explained in Magnificat). Saint John the Baptist preached clearly at that very moment as he was freed from Original Sin about the inviolability of human life in the womb and about the veneration that is to be paid to the Mother of God and to the adoration that must be paid to the One she carried in her Virginal and Immaculate womb, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Saint John the Baptist continued to preach clearly and unequivocally when he began his mission as the last of the Old Testament Prophets, preparing the way for the coming of Our Lord to assume His Public Ministry.

As is recounted in The New English Edition of The Mystical City of God, Our Lady explained the significance of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist six months, one day before the Nativity of her Divine Son, Our Lord Himself: 

270. The hour for the rising of the shining light (Jn. 5:35) which was to precede the clear Sun of justice and announce the desired day of the law of grace had arrived. It was the opportune time to issue forth to the light the great prophet of the Most High, and John was more than a prophet (Lk. 7:26), who preparing the hearts of men was to point out with his finger the Lamb (Jn. 1:29) who was to bring remedy and sanctification to the world (Lk. 1:76; 7:27). Before he issued from the maternal womb the Lord revealed to the blessed child the hour in which he was to begin his mortal career among men in the common light of all. The child had the perfect use of his reason and the divine science infused by the presence of the incarnate Word; he therefore knew he was to arrive at the port of a cursed and dangerous land (Gen. 3:17), and walk upon a world full of evils and snares, where many are overtaken by ruin and perdition. 271. For this reason the great child was as it were in a state of suspense and doubt. On the one hand, nature having nourished his body to that state of perfection which is proper to birth, he recognized and felt, in addition to the express will of God, the compelling forces of nature which urged him to leave the retreat of the maternal womb; on the other hand he knew and contemplated the risk of the dangerous journey through mortal life. Thus he hesitated between the fear of danger and the desire to obey, and he debated within himself: “Where shall I go, if I enter into the conflict of the danger of losing God? How can I submit myself to the conversation of mortals in which so many blind themselves and lose their sense and the way of life? I am in darkness in my mother’s womb; yet into another darkness of great danger I must pass. I have been compressed here since I received the light of reason; yet more oppressed shall I be in the expanse and liberty of mortals. Nevertheless let us go, O Lord, into the world according to thy will, for to execute it is always best. And if in thy service, O highest King, I can employ my life and my faculties, this alone shall ease my passing into the light and the course of my journey. Give me, O Lord, thy blessing for my passage into the world.”

272. By this prayer the Precursor of Christ merited new graces and blessings at his birth. The fortunate child knew by the presence of God in his mind that he was sent to perform great things and was assured of the necessary help. Before relating this most happy parturition of St. Elizabeth, and in order to reconcile the sequence of events with the text of the sacred Evangelists, I give notice that the pregnancy resulting from this admirable conception lasted nine days less than nine months, for due to the fecundity miraculously restored to a barren woman the fruit conceived matured for parturition in this shorter time. When St. Gabriel announced to most holy Mary that her cousin was in the sixth month of her pregnancy (Lk. 1:36), it must be understood to mean that eight or nine days were still lacking for the completion of the sixth month. I have also said in chapter XVI (206) that the heavenly Lady departed on the fourth day after the Incarnation of the Word for her visit to St. Elizabeth. St. Luke does not say that most holy Mary departed immediately, but in those days (1:39), and though She went in haste, yet She consumed four days on her journey, as said in the same chapter, number 207.

273. I likewise remind the reader that when the same Evangelist says most holy Mary remained about three months in the house of St. Elizabeth (Lk. 1:56), there were only two or three days missing, for in all respects the Evangelist was exact in his words. Accordingly most holy Mary, our Lady, was present not only during the confinement of St. Elizabeth and the birth of St. John, but also at the circumcision and determination of his mysterious name as I shall now show (290). Counting eight days after the incarnation of the Word, our Lady arrived at the house of Elizabeth on the evening of the second of April, if we reckon according to our solar months; adding thereto three months less two days, we have the first of July, the eighth day of the birth of St. John, and early the next day most holy Mary departed on her return to Nazareth.* St. Luke mentions the return of our Queen before he speaks of the birth of St. John, although this happened before She returned (Lk. 1:56-7). The sacred text anticipates the mention of the journey in order to finish it and not interrupt the thread of the narrative of the birth of the Precursor. This is what I was told to write in explanation of the text.

274. Her time approaching, St. Elizabeth felt the child in motion as if he wanted to place himself on his feet, yet he was merely following the ordinary course of nature and the dictates of obedience. Some moderate pains overtook the mother and she informed the Princess Mary; however, she did not call Her to be present at the birth because the worthy reverence due to the excellence of Mary, and for the fruit within her womb, prudently withheld her from asking what might not seem appropriate. Neither was the great Lady personally present where her cousin was, yet She sent her the coverings and swaddling clothes which She had made for the fortunate child. Presently thereafter he was born, very perfect and mature, the cleanliness of his body testifying to the purity of his soul, for he was not born with such impurities as other children. He was wrapped in the coverings, which were already great relics worthy of veneration. Shortly after, when St. Elizabeth had composed herself, most holy Mary at the command of the Lord issued from her oratory in order to pay her visit to the mother and child and give them her blessing.

275. At the request of his mother the Queen received in her arms the newborn child and offered him as a new oblation to the eternal Father, and His Majesty received it with approbation and pleasure as the firstfruits of the works of the incarnate Word and the execution of his divine decrees. The most blessed child, full of the Holy Ghost, acknowledged his sovereign Queen, showing Her not only interior but outward reverence by a secret inclination of his head, and anew he adored the divine Word made man in the womb of his most pure Mother, where He was at that time manifested to him by a special light. And since he also knew the singular benefit he among all mortals had received, the infant in recognition performed great acts of gratitude, humility, love, and reverence of the Godman and of his Virgin Mother. The heavenly Lady in offering him to the eternal Father offered this prayer for him: “Most high Lord and eternal Father, holy and powerful, receive into thy service the gift and first fruit of thy most holy Son and my Lord. He is sanctified and rescued by thy Onlybegotten from the power and effects of sin and of thy ancient enemies. Receive this morning sacrifice, and infuse into him along with thy holy blessing thy divine Spirit, so he may faithfully accomplish the ministry destined for him in thy honor and that of thy Onlybegotten.” This prayer of our Queen was efficacious in all respects, and She perceived how the Lord enriched this child, chosen as his Precursor. She also felt within Herself the effects of these admirable blessings.

276. While the Queen of the universe held the infant in her arms She was for a short time secretly rapt in sweetest ecstasy; during it She offered up this prayer for the child, allowing him to recline on her bosom where the Onlybegotten of the Father and her own was soon to rest. This was the singular prerogative and excellence of the great Precursor, granted to none other among the saints. Therefore it is not surprising that the Angel called him great in the eyes of the Lord (Lk. 1:15), for before he was born the Lord visited and sanctified him, and at his birth he was raised and placed on the throne of grace. He was embraced by the arms which were to enfold God himself made man, and thereby excited in the sweetest Mother of God the entrancing desire of holding within them the Son of the Most High, filling Her with delightful affections for his Precursor, the newborn child. St. Elizabeth knew these divine sacraments, for the Lord manifested them to her. She beheld her miraculous child in the arms of one who was his Mother in a more exalted sense than she herself, since St. Elizabeth was his mother in regard to nature, while most pure Mary was his Mother regarding his existence in such excellent grace. All this caused a most sweet consonance in the hearts of the two most happy and fortunate mothers and in the child, who also shared in the light of such venerable mysteries. By the motions of his tender body he manifested the joy of his spirit, clinging to the heavenly Lady and seeking to attract her caresses and remain with Her. The sweetest Lady caressed him, but with such majestic moderation that She did not kiss him as his age would have permitted, for She preserved her most chaste lips intact for her most holy Son. Nor did She look intently into his face, directing all her attention to the sanctity of his soul. So great was the prudence and modesty of the great Queen of heaven in the use of her eyes that She would scarcely have known him by sight.

277. When the birth of John became known all the relations and acquaintances, as St. Luke says (1:58), gathered to congratulate Zacharias and St. Elizabeth, for his house was rich, noble, and honored in the whole province, and their piety attracted the hearts of all who knew them. Having known them so many years without children, and being aware of the sterility and advanced age of Elizabeth, all were stirred to amazement and joyful wonder, and they looked upon the birth of the child rather as a miracle than a natural event. The holy priest Zacharias remained mute and unable to manifest his joy by word of mouth, for the hour of his miraculous cure had not arrived; yet, freed of his incredulity, he showed his joy in other ways and was full of affectionate gratitude and praise for the rare blessing which he had now witnessed with his own eyes. His behavior we shall describe in the next chapter. (The New English Edition of the Mystical City of God, Book III: Chapter XXII.)

What excuse do we have for being as worldly as we are in our daily pursuits, making so little time in most cases for prayer and even voluntary acts of penance by withdrawing from a few legitimate pleasures even though our closest friends and relatives may consider us unusual for doing so?

We must, therefore, pray to Saint John the Baptist every day, especially before Holy Mass, so that he might prepare the way for Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s coming into our souls by means of Holy Communion just as he had prepared the way for the coming of His Public Ministry by means of his own preaching in the wilderness. The more we are united with the spirit of Saint John the Baptist in this time of hatred of Christ the King in the world and a distortion of His Sacred Deposit of Faith by the lords of the counterfeit church of conciliarism is the more that we will be ready to reject worldliness in order to have souls that are more ready to serve Our King with promptness and with true delight.

Thus vivified by the baptism he received in Saint Elizabeth’s womb at the Visitation, Saint John the Baptist was able to preach fearlessly in the wilderness. mincing no words when denouncing King Herod the Tetrarch for his bigamous and adulterous “marriage” to the wife of his brother Philip, Herodias.

Herod knew that the Baptist was correct and that he was living in sin. Herodias, though, did not share Herod’s misgivings about their relationship, scheming with her daughter Salome to have the head of the Baptist delivered to her on a silver platter, thus fulfilling Saint John’s prophesy about himself: ” He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn. 3: 30) Saint John the Baptist was unafraid to stand up in defense of the truth. He did not bow to the will of those in power who did evil. He did not have a “grand strategy” to try to mask the truth in order to make it more palatable to anyone, whether those in civil power or to the people in the crowds listening to his sermons. He knew that the One Whose way he had prepared would reward him for his fidelity to the mission that had been entrusted to him, which included a firm proclamation of uncomfortable truths to the lowly and the powerful alike.

The first bishops of the Church, the Apostles, became as bold as Saint John the Baptist following the descent of the Holy Ghost upon them and our dear Blessed Mother on Pentecost Sunday. They were unafraid to proclaim the truths of the Divine Redeemer, counting it as pure gain to be reviled by the Jewish religious authorities and to be misunderstood and persecuted by the secular Roman authorities. They did not shrink from telling all men that there was no other Name other than that of the Holy Name of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by which they could be saved from their sins. They trusted in the power of the graces won by the shedding of Our Lord’s Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross to proclaim clearly and unequivocally what the Divine Master had entrusted to them, knowing that the seeds they planted might never come to fruition in their own lifetimes. They cared about fidelity to Christ their King, not about human respect or earthly privilege.

It has been the case throughout the history of the Church that bishops and priests and ordinary lay men and women have had to stand fast in behalf of the truths of the Divine Redeemer as He has revealed them through His true Church when those truths have been undermined and/or ignored by public officials. According to Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, thirteen million Catholics accepted death as the price of their fidelity to Our Lord rather than worship the false gods of the secular Roman Empire. Great bishops and priests and members of the laity stood fast against the injustices and immorality of some of leaders of Catholic Europe.

Saint Thomas a Becket asserted the rights of the Church against the claims of King Henry II.

Saint Stanislaus was slain personally by the jealous King Boleslaus.

Saint John Nepumocene was killed on orders of King Wenceslaus IV in Prague for refusing divulge the Queen’s confession.

Saint John Fisher was the only bishop in England who remained faithful to Rome when King Henry VIII had Parliament declare him to be the “supreme head of the Church in England.”

Saint Thomas More refused to assent publicly to that declaration or to the validity of Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn. Over 72,000 Catholics, fully 3.1 percent of the population of England at the time, were put to death by Henry and his minions between 1534 and the time of his death in 1547.

Thousands of Catholics were persecuted during the French Revolution and its aftermath.

As is being noted in my soon-to-be-concluded series on the Cristeros War, thousands of Catholics died as a result of the anticlericalism of the Freemason Plutarco Elias Calles and the military assistance provided him by the government of the United States of America.

Countless numbers perished as a result of Bolshevism and Nazism. Father Maximilian Kolbe was imprisoned in Auschwitz, where he gave up his life for a fellow prisoner, because he was a fierce critic of all manner of secular political ideologies and movements, including Freemasonry and Zionism, that were poisoning the world and thus ruining souls.

The late Bishop Ignatius Kung spent over thirty years in a Red Chinese prison cell for his remaining steadfastly loyal to Pope Pius XII after the Chinese Communists had created their own schismatic rump church, with which Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI made his “peace” on June 29, 2007.

This list could on and on and on. These great heroes of the Faith did not do the bidding of Herod’s successors: they proclaimed the truth to the point of their deaths, trusting that the all-merciful Lord would reward them for their fidelity and that their efforts would be used by Our Lady in ways that that would not be made manifest to them until eternity.

How sad it is to note, therefore, that even the man thought to be the Vicar of Christ on earth, "Pope Francis" and most of his false church's “bishops” are as one with Herod the Tetrarch and with the enemies of the Faith over the centuries, showing themselves to be Anti-Saint John the Baptists in the process. These reprobates, believe that it is inopportune, imprudent, unpastoral or otherwise bad form to boldly proclaim truths in order to defend the doctrinal integrity of Faith and Morals. These wicked men have thus given free rein to pro-perversity, pro-abortion statists in every country of the world. Their beliefs, words and actions are directly contrary to those of the Prophet born this very day. They are just as much precursors of Antichrist Himself as Saint John the Baptist was the Precursor of Christ the King.

No, this is not a new phenomenon, to be sure.

There were plenty of examples of bishops who did the bidding of corrupt rulers in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, many more who did so in the aftermath of the Protestant Revolt (men who held their tongues in the fear that a rebuke to a public official might lose a particular country to the forces of Protestantism, as Father Denis Fahey noted so well in The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World.).

What is new, however, is that the counterfeit church of conciliarism’s false liturgical service embraces a false spirit of an “opening up to the world”, thus feeding the natural tendency of human beings to refrain from doing that which is difficult, especially as it pertains to the defense of the Faith and the proper formation of souls unto eternity, in order to maintain peace and a sense of “respectability.”

A whole legion of Herod’s helpers in the conciliar “hierarchy,” therefore, has thus been created by the very ambiance of the heresies and the errors of conciliarism, not the least of which are religious liberty and the belief that the civil state must be separated from the Church. These Herod’s helpers enable by silence and by public praise public officials who are at war with everything contained in the Deposit of Faith and thus everything that is necessary for the right ordering of souls and of societies. Why shouldn’t they? It’s what they do every day of their conciliar lives from the chancery offices they hold illicitly and as they offend God at the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo community table.

The loss of the sensus Catholicus in the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism has been such that there has been a manifest rejection of the belief that a Catholic bishop must be willing to lose his head to defend the truths of the Holy Faith. So must we, obviously.

A true bishop, however, has a special obligation by virtue of his possessing the fullness of the priesthood to bear a visible, courageous witness to the Holy Faith so as to inspire and embolden the faithful themselves to do so in every aspect of their own lives. Upon his immortal soul rests the eternal salvation of everyone who lives within the boundaries of his episcopal jurisdiction, Catholic and non-Catholic alike. If he does not see in Saint John the Baptist and the Apostles and the martyrs who came from the ranks of the episcopate and the priesthood his example of how to deal firmly with public scandal and with laws that are at variance with the laws of God and the rights of His Holy Church, then he is likely to be numbered in history among the largely anonymous vipers who went along with Thomas Cromwell and Thomas Cranmer in England four hundred eighty-one years ago.

Then again, of course, the “bishops” of conciliarism lack the grace of state. They are not bishops. They are merely administrators of large corporate offices which exist to make war upon the authentic patrimony of the Catholic Church. Lost in the minds of these false shepherds is any knowledge–no less acceptance–of these stirring words of Pope Pius VI, contained in Inscrutabile, December 25, 1775:

Consequently, you who are the salt of the earth, guardians and shepherds of the Lord’s flock, whose business it is to fight the battles of the Lord, arise and gird on your sword, which is the word of God, and expel this foul contagion from your lands. How long are we to ignore the common insult to faith and Church? Let the words of Bernard arouse us like a lament of the spouse of Christ: “Of old was it foretold and the time of fulfillment is now at hand: Behold, in peace is my sorrow most sorrowful. It was sorrowful first when the martyrs died; afterwards it was more sorrowful in the fight with the heretics and now it is most sorrowful in the conduct of the members of the household…. The Church is struck within and so in peace is my sorrow most sorrowful. But what peace? There is peace and there is no peace. There is peace from the pagans and peace from the heretics, but no peace from the children. At that time the voice will lament: Sons did I rear and exalt, but they despised me. They despised me and defiled me by a bad life, base gain, evil traffic, and business conducted in the dark.” Who can hear these tearful complaints of our most holy mother without feeling a strong urge to devote all his energy and effort to the Church, as he has promised? Therefore cast out the old leaven, remove the evil from your midst. Forcefully and carefully banish poisonous books from the eyes of your flock, and at once courageously set apart those who have been infected, to prevent them harming the rest. The holy Pope Leo used to say, “We can rule those entrusted to us only by pursuing with zeal for the Lord’s faith those who destroy and those who are destroyed and by cutting them off from sound minds with the utmost severity to prevent the plague spreading.” In doing this We exhort and advise you to be all of one mind and in harmony as you strive for the same object, just as the Church has one faith, one baptism, and one spirit. As you are joined together in the hierarchy, so you should unite equally with virtue and desire.

The affair is of the greatest importance since it concerns the Catholic faith, the purity of the Church, the teaching of the saints, the peace of the empire, and the safety of nations. Since it concerns the entire body of the Church, it is a special concern of yours because you are called to share in Our pastoral concern, and the purity of the faith is particularly entrusted to your watchfulness. “Now therefore, Brothers, since you are overseers among God’s people and their soul depends on you, raise their hearts to your utterance,” that they may stand fast in faith and achieve the rest which is prepared for believers only. Beseech, accuse, correct, rebuke and fear not: for ill-judged silence leaves in their error those who could be taught, and this is most harmful both to them and to you who should have dispelled the error. The holy Church is powerfully refreshed in the truth as it struggles zealously for the truth. In this divine work you should not fear either the force or favor of your enemies. The bishop should not fear since the anointing of the Holy Spirit has strengthened him: the shepherd should not be afraid since the prince of pastors has taught him by his own example to despise life itself for the safety of his flock: the cowardice and depression of the hireling should not dwell in a bishop’s heart. Our great predecessor Gregory, in instructing the heads of the churches, said with his usual excellence: “Often imprudent guides in their fear of losing human favor are afraid to speak the right freely. As the word of truth has it, they guard their flock not with a shepherd’s zeal but as hirelings do, since they flee when the wolf approaches by hiding themselves in silence…. A shepherd fearing to speak the right is simply a man retreating by keeping silent.” But if the wicked enemy of the human race, the better to frustrate your efforts, ever brings it about that a plague of epidemic proportions is hidden from the religious powers of the world, please do not be terrified but walk in God’s house in harmony, with prayer, and in truth, the three arms of our service. Remember that when the people of Juda were defiled, the best means of purification was the public reading to all, from the least to the greatest, of the book of the law lately found by the priest Helcias in the Lord’s temple; at once the whole people agreed to destroy the abominations and seal a covenant in the Lord’s presence to follow after the Lord and observe His precepts, testimonies and ceremonies with their whole heart and soul.” For the same reason Josaphat sent priests and Levites to bring the book of the law throughout the cities of Juda and to teach the people. The proclamation of the divine word has been entrusted to your faith by divine, not human, authority. So assemble your people and preach to them the gospel of Jesus Christ. From that divine source and heavenly teaching draw draughts of true philosophy for your flock. Persuade them that subjects ought to keep faith and show obedience to those who by God’s ordering lead and rule them. To those who are devoted to the ministry of the Church, give proofs of faith, continence, sobriety, knowledge, and liberality, that they may please Him to whom they have proved themselves and boast only of what is serious, moderate, and religious. But above all kindle in the minds of everyone that love for one another which Christ the Lord so often and so specifically praised. For this is the one sign of Christians and the bond of perfection. (Pope Pius VI, Inscrutabile, December 25, 1775.)

Just as we sometimes get bogged down in the trees of the forests of partisan politics, as I have pointed out repeatedly in scores of articles and in my lectures of a now bygone era over the years, it also the case that we tend to get bogged down in the trees of ecclesiastical politics, forgetting that today’s Herod’s Helpers, such as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Oscar Andres Maradiaga Rodriguez, Walter Kasper, Blase Cupich, Donald Wuerl, Joseph Tobin, Wilton Gregory,  Sean Patrick O'Malley and, among so many others, the disgraced Theodore McCarrick and George Niederauer have been merely the successors of the late "Saint John XXIII," "Saint Paul VI," and "Saint John Paul II." The Americans among the names of these apostates are the true successors of revolutionaries such as John Cardinal Dearden, in whose Archdiocese of Detroit Call to Action started, and the late Joseph “Cardinal” Bernardin, who invented the “consistent ethic of life” (seamless garment) to provide a cover for Catholics to vote for pro-abortion Catholic politicians with impunity. (And Dearden and Bernardin were merely carrying on the work of the late Francis Cardinal Spellman and the late Richard Cardinal Cushing, who were themselves merely the inheritors of the Americanism of John Carroll and John Ireland and James Gibbons, et al.)

“Saint Paul II” appointed many of these men these men. Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI promoted the likes of Niederauer and Wuerl. Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II did not remove them. His curial “cardinals” actually enabled them by undermining frequently the few “bishops” who stood up against them.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio simply has taken the conciliar revolution to its next logical step: namely, the publicly unabashed celebration of sin in the name of "mercy," "compassion," "openness," and a supposed "docility to the spirit." The problem is not with the false “bishops” in any country in the world, including right here in the United States of America, my friends: it is conciliarism itself, including the very conciliarist error of episcopal collegiality that has made war against and rendered most Catholics silent about the authentic patrimony of the Catholic Church during the past fifty years as surely as Zachary himself was rendered dumb prior to the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist on this very day. And this is to say nothing of all of the other things that have flowed from the wake of “Second” Vatican Council, namely, the doctrinal and liturgical revolutions.

Saint John the Baptist did not mince words when dealing with the situation of his own day. We cannot mince words either, whether it be with the lords of Modernity in the world r the lords of conciliarism, starting with Jorge Mario Bergoglio, in the counterfeit church of conciliarism.

The readings appointed today for Matins in the Divine Office include a sermon given by Saint Ambrose:

Elizabeth's full time came that she should be delivered, and she brought forth a son. And her neighbours rejoiced with her. The birth of a Saint is a joy for many, for it is a good to all. Righteousness is an help to all, and therefore when a righteous man is born it is an heralding of his life, which is still to come, that the helpful excellency of his future should be hailed by the, as it were, prophetic joy of the neighbours. It is well that we should be told concerning the prophet, while he was yet in the womb, that we may know how that Mary was there; but we hear nothing of his childhood, because, we know that it was safe and strong through the nearness of the Lord, Himself then in that womb which was free from the sorrows of pregnancy. And therefore we read in the Gospel nothing touching him save his coming, the annunciation thereof to his father, the leap which he gave in the womb, and his crying in the wilderness.

It was not for him to feel childishness, who beyond all use of nature or of his age, when as yet he lay in his mother's womb, leapt at once unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. (Eph. iv. 13.) It is strange how that the Holy Evangelist hath judged meet to tell us that they thought to call the child Zacharias, after the name of his father, that thou mayest notice that the mother would have none of the names whereby their kindred were called, but only that name which the Holy Ghost had dictated, and which the Angel had told before unto Zacharias. The dumb man had certainly not been able to tell his wife by what name to call the child, and Elizabeth must needs have learnt by revelation what she could not have heard from her husband.

His name is John; that is, it is not for us to choose a name now for him to whom God hath given a name already. He hath a name, which we know, but it is not one of our choosing. To receive a name from God is one of the honours of the Saints. Thus was it that Jacob's name was no more called Jacob but Israel, because he saw God face to face. (Gen. xxxii. 28.) Thus was it that our Lord Jesus was named before He was born, with a name not given by an Angel, but by the Father. Thou seest that Angels tell that which they have been bidden to tell, not matters of their own choosing. Nor oughtest thou to wonder that Elizabeth named a name which she had not heard, since it had been revealed to her by the same Holy Ghost Who had commanded the Angel to tell it. (Matins, The Divine Office, Feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist.)

Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., explained the importance of this feast day in The Liturgical Year:

The Voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord; behold thy God! [Isa. xl 3, 9] In this world grown now so cold, who can understand earth’s transports at hearing these glad tidings so long expected? The promised God was not yet manifested; but already had the heavens bowed down [Ps. xvii 10] to make way for His passage. No longer was He ‘the One Who is to come,’ He for Whom our fathers, the illustrious Saints of the prophetic age, ceaselessly called in their indomitable hope. Still hidden, indeed, but already in our midst, He was resting beneath that virginal cloud, compared with which the heavenly purity of Thrones and Cherubim waxes dim; yea, the united fires of burning Seraphim grow faint in presence of the single love wherewith she alone encompasses Him in her human heart, she that lowly daughter of Adam whom He had chosen for his Mother. Our accursed earth, become in a moment more blessed than Heaven that had so long been closed against the prayers of men, only waited for the revelation of the august mystery. The hour had come for earth to join her canticles to that eternal and Divine praise which henceforth was ever rising from her depths, and which, being itself no other than the Word Himself, would praise God condignly. But beneath the veil of humility where His Divinity, even after as well as before His birth, must still continue to hide itself from men, who may discover the Emmanuel? Who, having recognized Him in His merciful abasements, may succeed in making Him accepted by a world lost in pride? Who may cry, pointing out the carpenter’s Son [St. Matt. xiii 55] in the midst of the crowd: ‘Behold Him Whom your fathers have so wistfully awaited’?

For such is the order decreed from on high, in the manifestation of the Messias. Conformably to the ways of men, the God-Man would not intrude Himself into public life; He would await, for the inauguration of His Divine ministry, some man who, having preceded Him in a similar career, would be hereby sufficiently accredited to introduce Him to the people.

Sublime part for a creature to play, to stand guarantee for his God, witness for the Word! The exalted dignity of him who was to fill such a position had been notified, as had that of the Messias, long before his birth. In the solemn liturgy of the age of types, the Levite choir, reminding the Most High of the meekness of David and of the promise made to him of a glorious heir, hailed from afar the mysterious lamp prepared by God for his Christ. [Ps. cxxxi 17] Not that, to give light to His steps, Christ should stand in need of external help:

He, the Splendour of the Father, had only to appear in these dark regions to fill them with the effulgence of the very heavens; but so many false glimmerings had deceived mankind, during the night of these ages of expectation, that, had the true Light arisen suddenly, it would not have been understood, or would have but blinded eyes now become well-nigh powerless, by reason of protracted darkness, to endure its brilliancy. Eternal Wisdom therefore decreed that, just as the rising sun is announced by the morning star and prepares his coming by the gently tempered brilliance of dawn, so Christ, Who is Light, should be preceded here below by a star, His precursor; and His approach should be signalized by the luminous rays which He Himself, though still invisible, would shed around this faithful herald of His coming. When, in bygone days, the Most High vouchsafed to light up the distant future before the eyes of His prophets, the radiant flash, which for an instant shot across the heavens of the old covenant, melted away in the deep night, and did not usher in the longed-for dawn. The morning star of which the psalmist sings shall never know defeat: declaring to night that all is now over with her, only in the triumphant splendour of the Sun of justice will his own light be dimmed. Even as dawn melts into day, so will he confound with Light Uncreated his own radiance; being of himself, like every creature, nothingness and darkness, he will so reflect the brilliancy of the Messias shining immediately upon him, that many will mistake him even for the very Christ. [St. Luke iii 15]

The mysterious conformity of Christ and His Precursor, the incomparable proximity which unites one to the other, are many times referred to in the sacred Scriptures. If Christ is the Word eternally uttered by the Father, John is to be the Voice bearing this Divine utterance whithersoever it is to reach. Isaias already hears the desert echoing with these accents, till now unknown; and the prince of prophets expresses the joy with all the enthusiasm of a soul already beholding itself in the very presence of its Lord and God. [Isa. xl] The Christ is the Angel of the Covenant; but in the same text wherein the Holy Ghost gives Him this title, for us so full of hope, there appears likewise, bearing the same name of Angel, the inseparable messenger, the faithful ambassador, to whom the earth is indebted for her knowledge of the Spouse: ‘Behold I send My Angel, and he shall prepare the way before my face. And presently the Lord Whom ye seek, and the Angel of the testament whom you desire, shall come to His Temple; behold he cometh, saith the Lord of hosts.’ [Mal, iii 1] And putting an end to the prophetic ministry, of which he is the last representative, Malachias terminates his own oracles by the words which we have heard Gabriel addressing to Zachary, when he makes known to him the approaching birth of the Precursor. [Ibid. iv 5. 6]

The presence of Gabriel, on this occasion, of itself shows what intimacy with the Son of God this child then promised shall enjoy; for the same prince of the heavenly hosts came again, soon afterwards, to announce the Emmanuel. Countless faithful messengers stand round the throne of the Holy Trinity; and the choice of these august ambassadors usually varies according to the dignity of the instructions to be transmitted to earth by the Most High. Nevertheless, it was fitting that the same Archangel charged with concluding the sacred nuptials of the Word with the human nature should likewise prelude this great mission by preparing the coming of him whom the eternal decrees had designated as the friend of the Bridegroom. [St. John iii 29] Six months later, when sent to Mary, he strengthens his Divine message by revealing to her the prodigy which had by then already given a son to the sterile Elizabeth; this being the first step of the Almighty towards a still greater marvel. John is not yet born; but without longer delay his career is begun: he is employed to attest the truth of the Angel’s promises. How ineffable this guarantee of a child hidden in his mother’s womb, but already brought forward as God’s witness in that sublime negotiation which at that moment is holding Heaven and earth in suspense! Enlightened from on high, Mary receives the testimony and hesitates no longer. ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord,’ she says to the Archangel, ‘be it done unto me according to thy word.’ [St. Luke i 36-38]

Gabriel has retired, bearing away with him the Divine secret which he has not been commissioned to reveal to the rest of the world. Neither will the most prudent Virgin herself tell it; even Joseph, her virginal spouse, is to receive no communication of the mystery from her lips. But the woeful sterility, beneath which earth has been so long groaning, is not to be followed by an ignorance more sorrow-stricken still, now that it has yielded its fruit. [Ps. lxxxiv 13] There is one from whom Emmanuel will have no secret nor reserve; it were fitting to reveal the marvel to him. Scarcely has the Spouse taken possession of the spotless sanctuary wherein the first nine months of his abiding amongst men must run their course, scarcely has the Word been made Flesh, than our Lady, inwardly taught what is her Son’s desire, rising, makes all haste to speed into the hill-country of Judea. [St. Luke i 39] The voice of my Beloved! Behold He cometh, leaping upon the mountains, skipping over the hills. [Cant. ii 8] His first visit is to the ‘friend of the Bridegroom,’ the first outpouring of His graces is to John. A distinct feast will allow us to honour in a special manner the day on which the Divine Child, sanctifying His Precursor, reveals Himself to John by the voice of Mary; the day on which our Lady, manifested by John leaping within the womb of his mother, proclaims at last the wondrous things operated within her by the Almighty according to the merciful promise which He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed for ever. [St. Luke i 55]

But the time has come when the good tidings are to spread through all the adjacent country, until at length they reach the whole world. John is about to be born, and, whilst still himself unable to speak, he is to loose his father’s tongue. He is to put an end to that dumbness with which the aged priest, a type of the old law had been struck by the Angel; and Zachary, himself filled with the Holy Ghost, is about to publish in a new canticle the blessed visit of the Lord God of Israel. [Ibid. i 68] ) (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year.)

We must always proclaim the good tidings of the Holy Faith, always making sure to pray for those whose words and actions we must denounce and to enfold them in the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, we must remember that the many of the great saints who confronted the errors and vices of their own days (Saint Jerome, Saint Nicholas, Saint Athanasius, Saint Boniface, Saint Anthony, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint John Marie Vianney, among many others) did so in a manner evocative of the spirit of Saint John the Baptist, denouncing falsehood firmly and without any concession made in the direction of the fuzzy sentimentality that exists in the world at present as the result of the rotten fruit of Protestantism and all of its permutations, including Modernism.

One of the worst chastisement God can send is Church is bad bishops and bad priests, as was the case with the Americanist bishops and priests who helped to pave the way for Dignitatis Humanae, December 7, 1965, and other conciliarist errors by their embrace of the civil state without the true Faith. Worse yet is the chastisement of false popes and false bishops and false priests! We are being chastised, make no mistake about it. We must therefore pray and do penance for our own sins and those of the whole world, especially for the sins of those in ecclesiastical authority who look askance at the example of Saint John the Baptist and the Apostles and their own predecessors in the line of Apostolic succession.

While it is important to chronicle the betrayals of  the "popes" and “bishops” and “priests” of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, we must remember that those who are Herod’s helpers will be consigned to the dust bin of ecclesiastical history if they do not repent of their treachery before they die. God will not be mocked. He will impose judgment on those members of the counterfeit church of conciliarism who have represented themselves falsely as Catholic bishops while they sought human respect and popularity rather than stand fast in His behalf to the point of physical torture and death.

Trusting, as always, in the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, may we offer her our daily prayers and penances and sacrifices, especially by means of praying as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit, so that she can present them to the Most Sacred Heart of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in reparation for our sins and those of the whole world.

Saint John the Baptist helped to prepare way for the Coming of Our Lord to assume His Public Ministry. Like Saint John the Baptist and by his holy intercession, therefore, may we be heralds of Our Lord as we seek to prepare the way for His many “comings” into the lives of the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross, never failing to proclaim His truths with fidelity and with true Charity for the eternal good of others, offering all to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.