HOW THE BIRTH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST COMPARES TO OUR PRESENT DAY SITUATION (HOMILY OF THE SOLEMNITY OF THE BIRTH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST
HOMILY ON THE BIRTH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST (SOLEMNITY) JUNE 24 Lk 1:57-66, 80 Dearest brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the birthday of St. John the Baptist. In the scheme of the calendar of the church, it is the only feast of birth celebrated beside the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ and that of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The date of today's feast came on the benchmark of the choice of date of Christmas which marks the celebration of the nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and of which six months interval stands between the two births. This is evident in the Gospel of Luke 1:26 within the dialogue between the Angel Gabriel and the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Angel Gabriel disclosed to Mary that her cousin Elizabeth is in her sixth-month pregnancy. So if Christmas is celebrated on the 25th of December, by implication the feast of the birth of John the Baptist is celebrated on the 24th of June. In this homily, we shall reflect on how the birth of John the Baptist compares t...