Ecce Agnus Dei

John the Baptist
"Behold the Lamb of God"

Amici, Americani, Compatriotae,

Earlier this evening I went to the Saturday Vigil Mass at Our Lady of Grace for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time. The Scripture readings included the following:

• The Servant's Mission in Isaiah 49:3-6
• Thanksgiving for Deliverance in Psalm 40:2-10
• St. Paul's Salutation to the Church at Corinth in 1st Corinthians 1:1-3
• The Lamb of God in John 1:29-34

Father Kirby as usual gave an excellent homily. He opened with a little story from one of his previous experiences. He had been in a small town with an assortment of Protestant ecclesial communities: Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran, etc., as well as his Catholic Parish. This town was infested with a growing squirrel population about which something had to be done. One Protestant community decided to hire an exterminator and the result was dead squirrels everywhere, and that turned out to be not such a good public relations move. Another tried to understand what was causing the population outbreak and its efforts were equally fruitless. So finally it was up to the Catholic Parish to try something. The pastor thereof one day arrived back with super soaker water guns. Everyone there thought that a little strange. So someone asked the Pastor, "Why, Father, all these super soakers?" Father responded, "I thought we would baptized the little critters. In that way we would only have to worry about them showing up on Christmas and Easter as most of the rest of the Catholics normally do."  The point in all this is that sadly many of us Catholics do not bother to live out our Baptism but once or twice a year.

Now while I cannot recall all that Father Kirby said (I really need to start taking notes!), the gist of it was in the selected Scripture passages below. I think what may have prompted him to go along this line was today's Gospel from the first chapter of St. John where John the Baptist sees Jesus and declares:

I did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘On whomever you see the Spirit come down and remain, he is the one who will baptize with the holy Spirit.’

Concerning Baptism St. Paul says in Romans 6:3-4:

Or are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.

And again in Colossians 2:11-13 St. Paul explains:

In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not administered by hand, by stripping off the carnal body, with the circumcision of Christ. You were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. And even when you were dead [in] transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he brought you to life along with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions...

1st Peter 3:18-22 goes on to explain:

For Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God. Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the spirit. In it he also went to preach to the spirits in prison, who had once been disobedient while God patiently waited in the days of Noah during the building of the ark, in which a few persons, eight in all, were saved through water. This prefigured baptism, which saves you now. It is not a removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him.

The point in all this is that Baptism is the Sacrament which opens up to us all the other graces that God has to bestow on us. But if we do not live out our Baptism in our lives, then we will be incapable of receiving those graces. Indeed, just as we look at our priests as being an example of piety and holiness, so does the unbaptized pagan look upon us who are but members of the Laity, and the reason why is because of that indelible mark which Baptism places on our souls. We are therefore called to be a witness in deed and in word, acting and speaking the truth with humility and kindness and mercy and grace. Our Catholicism is not to be relegated to just Christmas and Easter. It is to be a daily exercise of faith stemming from that first Sacrament, our Baptism.

Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel

Amici, Americani, Compatriotae,

Today's Scripture readings for the Saturday in the Fourth Week of Advent have so much to unpack:

• Nathan's Admonition to David about the Temple in 2nd Samuel 7:1-6
• The Psalmist on the Davidic Covenant in Psalm 89:2-29
• The Canticle of Zechariah on the Birth of John the Baptist in Luke 1:67-79

ASIDE: Having read the notes in the Navarre Study Bible for each of these Scripture passages, I highly recommend the acquisition of such a study bible. It is expensive but well worth every penny.

Due to time and space limitations, I cannot repeat here everything I learned this morning. But one important thing did occur to me. King David wanted to build a Temple of marble and gold to replace the Tent of the Meeting which the Hebrews used for their worship in the Exodus from Egypt, and to house the Ark of the Old Covenant.

The Mosaic Tabernacle Tent
ESV Study Bible

The Mosaic Tabernacle and Court
ESV Study Bible

Nathan told David, "Thus says the LORD: Should you build me a house to dwell in?" While David's immediate son Solomon did build a Temple, the house in which the Lord would dwell would not be in a physical building made by man, but in the hearts of the Believers comprising the Body of Christ, the Una Sancta Catholica et Apostolica Ecclesia.

King Solomon's Temple
ESV Study Bible

Canticle of Zechariah in Greek

Thus Zechariah declares the following about his son:

You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High,
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way,
to give his people knowledge of salvation
by the forgiveness of their sins.
In the tender compassion of our God
the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

That dawn is shown in Revelation 12:1 in the Ark of the New Covenant:

A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

Virgo Maria Regina Caeli

John the Baptist was the forerunner of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, and from Him came the Church - the Body of Believers - in whom the Lord dwells. Thus is fulfilled 2nd Samuel 7:16:

Your house and your Kingdom shall endure forever before me;
your throne shall stand firm forever

Yahweh Est Gratiosus

Birth of John the Baptist

Amici, Americani, Compatriotae,

There is no daily Mass today at Our Lady of Grace, however, I do have a few thoughts on today's Scripture readings for the Friday in the Fourth Week of Advent. The readings include the following:

• The Prophecy of Malachi concerning John the Baptist in Malachi 3:1-4, 23-24
• The Praise of the Psalmist in Redemption Being Near at Hand in Psalms 25
• The Birth of John the Baptist in Luke 1:57-66

As the reader can see, these passages all related to John the Baptist. And the name John is noteworthy in the context of this Advent season. In Latin it is Ioannes and in Greek Ιωαννης. The name derives from the Hebrew יוֹחָנָן or Yochanan meaning Yahweh is gracious, hence the title of this blog post. This then is a continuation of the theme of grace - Mary full of grace (Luke 1:28) and Hannah or Grace, the mother of Samuel in 1st Samuel 1.

Marriage and Divorce
NIV Archaeological Study Bible

Now on a different tangent, I have never liked the practice of seeing readings taken out of the context in which they were written, or divided up with important text between verses being deleted. Thus, for that reason I reviewed the text in Malachi chapter 2 immediately preceding today's Old Testament reading. Imagine therefore my surprise when I read in verses 10 through 17 what the prophet Malachi wrote, then considering it in light of what John the Baptist told King Herod regarding the sanctity of marriage:

10 Have we not all one father?
Has not one God created us?
Why, then, do we break faith with each other,
profaning the covenant of our ancestors?
11 Judah has broken faith; an abominable thing
has been done in Israel and in Jerusalem.
Judah has profaned the LORD’s holy place, which he loves,
and has married a daughter of a foreign god.
12 May the LORD cut off from the man who does this
both witness and advocate from the tents of Jacob,
and anyone to bring an offering to the LORD of hosts!
13 This also you do: the altar of the LORD you cover
with tears, weeping, and groaning,
Because the Lord no longer takes note of your offering
or accepts it favorably from your hand.
14 And you say, “Why?”—
Because the LORD is witness
between you and the wife of your youth
With whom you have broken faith,
though she is your companion, your covenanted wife.
15 Did he not make them one, with flesh and spirit?
And what does the One require? Godly offspring!
You should be on guard, then, for your life,
and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.
16 For I hate divorce,
says the LORD, the God of Israel,
And the one who covers his garment with violence,
says the LORD of hosts.
You should be on guard, then, for your life,
and you must not break faith.
17 You have wearied the LORD with your words,
yet you say, “How have we wearied him?”
By saying, “All evildoers
are good in the sight of the LORD,
And he is pleased with them,”
or “Where is the just God?”

Marriage and Divorce
NIV New Interpreter's Study Bible

Immediately following this admonition in marriage comes the prophecy in verse 1 of chapter 3, "Now I am sending my messenger—he will prepare the way before me." And what message did that messenger proclaim? Matthew 14:3-4 tells us:

Now Herod had arrested John, bound [him], and put him in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, for John had said to him, “It is not lawful for you to have her.”

Herodias had apparently divorced (or had been divorced by) Philip who was Herod's half-brother, and then married Herod, Leviticus 18:16 forbade that with these words:

You shall not have intercourse with your brother’s wife; that would be a disgrace to your brother.

Because John the Baptist upheld the never changing principle of the sanctity of marriage (a principle reiterated and clarified by Christ Himself in Matthew 19:1-12), he was imprisoned and then eventually beheaded. Salome, the daughter of Herodias, brought his decapitated head into the party being held by Herod for inspection by Herodias. To this day that reminds me of what happened to another man who dared to tell the truth in public.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Back around 43 BC or so Gaius Octavius (later Augustus Caesar), Marcus Antonius and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate in the wake of the assassination of Gaius Iulius Caesar. Rome's most famous statesman, Marcus Tullius Cicero, spoke against the dictatorship which Second Triumvirate threatened to establish. He wrote 14 Philippics in defense of the Res Publica. Because he dared to oppose tyranny, he too was decapitated like his spiritual successor John the Baptist. Luvia, the wife of Marcus Antonius is reputed to have taken his head, extracting the tongue and repeatedly stabbing it with needles. Only her spiritual successor Herodias some 70 years later would be as vicious as she.

The point in all this is clear: grace isn't always "luvy duvy, peace 'n flowers, common good and social justice." Sometimes grace demands that men be manly and stand up against evil women (Luvia and Herodias) who eschew the example of Our Lady of Grace. That is what Cicero did, and that is what John the Baptist did. The Lord is gracious, but beware because His grace demands obedience. In the case of Malachi and John the Baptist, it demanded obedience to the principle of the sanctity of marriage.