‘Fulfillment of Prophecy’: Nativity of St. John the Baptist

Today in the Catholic Church we commemorate the nativity, or birth, of St. John the Baptist, the last prophet of the Old Law and the Forerunner of Jesus Christ. Of John, His cousin, Jesus said (Lk.7:28), “Amongst those that are born of women, there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist.”

John practiced great austerities, living in the desert, eating locusts and honey, wearing a hair shirt, baptizing, and preaching repentance before the Messiah’s coming. When the Messiah—Jesus—did come, John was blessed to baptize Christ (Mk.1) and witness the revelation of the Trinity that followed.

The Latin Mass Missal says of John, “The Precursor of Christ was filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother’s womb. After an austere life as a hermit, he announced the Advent of Christ, preached penance, and baptized in the Jordan [River]. He was beheaded during the reign of [King] Herod.”

John’s whole being indeed was dedicated to God and God’s work from the moment of conception. Even before his birth, when Jesus’s mother Mary came to visit John’s mother Elizabeth, John leapt for joy at the approach of the Messiah’s mother (Lk.1:41). And ultimately, John was killed for rebuking the evil king and queen and their perverted relationship so offensive to God.

The Byzantine Catholic liturgical prayers of the Troparion and Kontakion for this feast are very beautiful. They refer to the fact that John’s mother Elizabeth was freed from the perceived curse of barrenness by his birth, and that John’s father Zachary—who had been struck dumb after doubting the angelic prophecy of John’s birth (Lk.1:18-20)—was able to speak again at John’s birth. Below are the Troparion and Kontakion, which provide food for meditation on this feast:

Prophet and Forerunner of the coming of Christ, although we honor you with love, we cannot give you worthy praise. Through your glorious and holy birth, your mother was freed from barrenness and your father from the loss of speech, and the incarnation of the Son of God is proclaimed to the world.

Today she who once was barren gives birth to Christ’s Forerunner. He himself is the fulfillment of all prophecy; for in the Jordan, he imposed his hand upon the Word of God Whom the prophets had foretold and was shown to be His prophet, herald, and Forerunner.