"There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came to
bear witness of the Light, to prepare unto the Lord a perfect people."
(The "Gradual" for the Vigil of St. John the Baptist). The Feast of the
Nativity of St. John the Baptist is a Double of the First Class with an
Octave, for Mary and her Son were present at his birth and he was "great
before the Lord."
The eighth day was the day of circumcision and the naming day. Everybody
naturally was calling him Zachary, but his mother who knew from her
husband that the name was fixed, said: "Not so, but he shall be called
John." They would not have it and appealed by signs to the deaf and dumb
father, who wrote: "John _is_ his name," for "he was so named of the
angel before he was conceived." At that moment Zachary's penance came to
an end and "he _spoke_ blessing God." This fresh miracle was soon
"noised abroad" and the people asked in fear: "What an one, think ye,
shall this child be?" Zachary, "filled with the Holy Ghost," used his
loosed tongue to sing his beautiful hymn of praise to God who had
remembered His holy testament, and had allowed "the _Orient_ from on
high" to visit them. And then addressing his little son, 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."
He began to "prepare His ways" by a life of hardship, solitude and
penance, having no fixed home, living on what he could find in the
deserts--locusts and wild honey, and wearing as a garment camels' hair
with a leathern girdle. Tradition tells us he began all this at a very
early age and he continued it "until the day of his manifestation to
Israel," that is, until the day he left his solitude and began to
preach--nearly thirty years later. He had thirty years' preparation for
his life's work, like Him whose way he was preparing, and he was
preparing it no less as a solitary in the deserts than as the great
preacher of penance by the Jordan.
What lessons can we learn for our own preparation for the Coming of
Christ this Advent?
1. That because we are going to be amongst those who in some way or
other "prepare His ways," God has occupied Himself with our preparation
even before we were born. Either by surrounding us with good, or by
bringing good out of evil or by some of His many ways which are not our
ways, He has had a hand in all that concerns us. We have first firmly to
believe this, and secondly to co-operate with all God's designs for us,
as John did.
2. That if we would prepare the ways of Christ we must be familiar with
His Mother, accustomed to receiving her salutations and to returning
them. That we must have her to live with us and take an interest in all
that concerns us. Who could better help us to prepare for the Coming of
her Son than His own Mother?
3. That we must be filled with the Holy Spirit and never turn Him out of
our hearts by sin. It would be useless to try to prepare the way for
Christ if we had not the co-operation of the Holy Spirit.
4. That penance in one form or another must have a share in our
preparation for the Coming of Christ. All we know of John from the time
of his infancy till he began his mission is that "he was in the
deserts." It was not that he preferred such a life, but he felt that it
was the one most suited to his own preparation for the Messias, for
during those long years in the deserts he was preparing the way of
Christ in his own heart; during his mission he prepared it in the hearts
of others. Solitude, fasting, lack of ease and comfort, coarse
clothing--these were the allies which John chose to aid him in his
preparation for the Coming of the King, for His "Kingdom is not of this
world" and "the weapons of our warfare are not carnal" (2 Cor. X. 4). He
was consecrated to God, and he separated himself from everything that
might interfere with his entire consecration.
_Colloquy._
(1) With God the Father Who has chosen me to prepare the ways
of His Son.
(2) With Him Who is coming.
(3) With God the Holy Ghost Who is co-operating with me.
(4) With Our Lady who is ready to let me do all my work by her
side. (Ecclus. XXIV. 30).
(5) With St. John the Baptist who will obtain for me, if I ask
him, the spirit of penance.
_Resolution._ To examine myself to-day as to the place penance is having
in my Advent, and if it has none, to fix at least _one_ daily
penitential act.
_Spiritual Bouquet._ "He was in the deserts."