Taking it Home: In Ordinary Time we typically follow the liturgical calendar by counting the passing Sundays to determine the readings and prayers for each week. But here we are in Ordinary Time and instead of a numerical Sunday we celebrate yet another Solemnity. Why? According to the liturgical calendar unlike Advent, Lent and Easter, Soleminities celebrated during Ordinary Time have precedence over the regular calendar. So instead of the 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Birth of John the Baptist.
   But what makes John the Baptist's birth so significant that we would celebrate it with such solemnity? First of all there are only three persons in the whole liturgical calendar who have their natural birth dates noted (typically memorials of Saints mark the date of their death, which is marked as the date of their birth into eternal life). The three persons are Jesus, Mary and John the Baptist. Obviously there must be some connection between these three. This is true and the connection is both symbolic and theological.
    Though the Church does not know with any certainty the exact dates of either Jesus, Mary or John's birth, the fact that we celebrate Jesus' and John's birthdays when we do is symbolic of the relationship between them. Ancient tradition has it that Jesus died March 25. Because the early Church Fathers believed that for symbolic reasons the death and birth of Jesus should occur on the same day, they reasoned that March 25 would also be the day that we would recognize the conception of Jesus. On March 25th then, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Annunciation, the day when the Angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she was to conceive and bear a Son named Jesus. If you calculate nine months from March 25 you arrive at December 25 for the physical birth of Jesus.
   Now as Luken scripture says, the birth of John took place six months before Jesus'. So since June 24th is six months before the birth of Jesus, that's when we celebrate the birth of John, who was known as the forerunner of Jesus, the one who would announce Jesus' coming. But there is also a theological note of fact at work here.
    December 25 is near the winter solstice, the time when daylight begins to outpace the darkness. June 24 is near the summer solstice, the time when darkness begins to outpace the light. It just so happens that this cosmological phenomenon relates to the final witness of John the Baptist in John's gospel noted in John 3:30. The gospel account says that "He (Jesus) must increase: I (the Baptist) must decrease." Jesus, the light that has come into the world, begins now to shine ever more brightly. The Baptist, the forerunner, has accomplished his mission of announcing the coming of Jesus and so now, like the coming darkness, he must depart.
   On this day, however, we remember the life and the purpose of the Baptst - to announce the coming of the Messiah. Like the Baptist we too have a similar purpose, to go and be a witness for the one who is our light in the darkness and the one who gives us life.               

                                                  Deacon John