The Nativity of St John the Baptist
As the holy Gospel tells us (Lk. 1:5–80), the parents of John the Baptist — the priest Zacharias and Elisabeth — “were both righteous before God”, but they came to old age without being given a child. Once, while Zacharias was serving in the temple at Jerusalem, “there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord”, who told him: “Thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.” Zacharias was troubled and doubted the words of the heavenly messenger, and for this he was punished by being deprived of speech.
St Elisabeth, who was well past the years of youth, conceived; and to keep herself from the mockery of the people she “hid herself five months”, until her kinswoman, the All-holy Virgin Mary, came to visit her.
When “Elisabeth's full time came that she should be delivered… her neighbours and her cousins heard… and they rejoiced with her.” On the eighth day the child was circumcised according to the law of Moses, and they meant to name him Zacharias; but Elisabeth declared: “Not so; but he shall be called John.” All were astonished — no one of her kindred bore that name — and they asked Zacharias to make known to them what he wished his son to be called. And he “asked for a writing table, and wrote, saying, His name is John. And they marvelled all.” By God's providence Zacharias's speech was restored to him. By the grace of the Holy Spirit he began to prophesy, and said: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people, and hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David”; and to the child he said: “And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways.”
After our Lord Jesus Christ was born, and the shepherds and the wise men had worshipped Him, the lawless king Herod commanded that they should slay “all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under” (Mt. 2:16). When Elisabeth learned of this, she fled with her child into the wilderness. Zacharias remained in Jerusalem and faithfully carried out the duties of a priest. Herod sent soldiers to him with an order to disclose where the child and his mother were. The father answered that he knew nothing of them, and for this he was struck down in the temple itself. Elisabeth went on living in the wilderness with her son, and there she died. The child John, guarded by an angel, remained in the wilderness.
