Isaiah 49: 1-6 / Acts 13: 22-26 / Luke 1: 57-66, 80
We
celebrate the birth of John the Baptist.
In our liturgical calendar there are only three births celebrated: the birth of Jesus at Christmas, the birth of
Mary in September and today’s feast, the birth of John the Baptist. So it’s a special day when we recall the
beauty of birth – the beauty and wonder of new life. Added to this celebration is the fact that,
as a growing parish, over the past year we have celebrated over sixty baptisms.
So
we are being given new life – in our babies and in our baptisms. And I think we can let today’s celebration
help us – help us to learn to see ourselves perhaps differently but certainly
more deeply – learn to see ourselves with the same bright, expectant eyes we
use to see our newly born and newly baptized.
Let
us learn to hear the words from Isaiah, our first reading, speaking to us and
speaking about us directly: The Lord
called me from birth, from my mother’s womb he gave me my name. …You are my servant, the Lord said to me,
through you I show my glory. …and [so] I
am made glorious in the sight of the Lord.
These
words are true and speak truly to us and about us. God has chosen to reveal the wonder of his
love and goodness in and through each one of us. Each of us reflects in a unique, unrepeatable
way God’s own radiant presence and love.
Today
we celebrate John the Baptist. But there
was another John whose words capture the deeper meaning of our feast. They are the words of Cardinal John Newman,
an Englishman of the nineteenth century, who realized how wonderfully we are
made and how wonderfully we are guided by God in life. Listen to his words. Again, they are words spoken directly to us
and about us:
God
has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to
me which He has not committed to another.
I have my mission – I may never know it in this life, but I shall be
told it in the next.
I
am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good – I shall do His work; I
shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not
intending it, if I do but keep His commandments.
I
think what Newman says is deeply true. In
the working out of God’s plan we are simply irreplaceable in one another’s
lives. We are, each of us, links in a
chain, bringing people together – bringing people closer to one another. What a thing of beauty it is to have this as
our vocation in life: bringing people
closer to each other. I think we deprive
ourselves when we don’t take the time to reflect on how we actually do live out
in our daily lives the beauty of our vocation.
Reflect on our marriages and families.
Reflect on our friendships. Reflect
on all the ways we reach out to others and bring them closer. Reflect on how irreplaceable we are for
others in their coming to know God’s goodness.
In
today’s gospel from Luke Elizabeth insists that the child to be circumcised be
called John. In Hebrew that name
is Johanan, and it means God is gracious. In his own life John remained true to his
name. He showed God’s gracious love by
bringing people together to be baptized and then bringing them to Jesus. John was the messenger; Jesus the
message. John was the voice; Jesus the
word.
John
tells us who we are. We are, all of us,
like John. Each of us – being fashioned
fresh from God’s love – bring people together.
We love and we link people together.
And in our own wonderful, beautiful, irreplaceable way we bring people
to Christ.
During
the upcoming week, as we begin to enjoy the season of summer, let us also take
the time to enjoy how God has been gracious to others through us. Let us appreciate and give thanks for how
wonderfully we have been made.
And
let us continue to hear true words spoken to us: And the Lord said to me:
‘you are my servant; through you I show my glory.’ [Isaiah 49: 3]
Fr. Pat Earl, SJ
