unless otherwise stated.
The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist.
Feast Day 29 August.
Greater-Double.
Red Vestments.
"The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist".
Artist: Caravaggio (1571–1610).
Date: 1608.
Current location: Altarpiece in The Oratory,
Saint John's Co-Cathedral, Valletta, Malta.
Source/Photographer: The Yorck Project:
10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei.
DVD-ROM, 2002. ISBN 3936122202.
Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH.
Permission: Wikide-I / 10.000 Gemälde für Commons
(Wikimedia Commons)
After having Solemnised on 24 June the joyous birth of Saint John the Baptist, The Church, today, honours his glorious birth in Heaven. Excepting The Blessed Virgin, he is the only Saint whose temporal birthday is observed. Saint John the Baptist holds in the worship of The Church The First Rank after The Angels.
John the Precursor, who had passed thirty years in the desert, where he had flourished like the Palm Tree, and grown like The Cedar of Libanus (Gradual), had the courage openly to reproach Herod with the scandal of his illegitimate union with Herodias, his sister-in-law, whose husband, Philip, was still alive (Introit, Epistle, Gospel).
“It is against the law,” he said to the King, “for you to take the wife of your brother.” Herodias forced Herod to imprison him and used an unexpected opportunity to obtain through her daughter, Salome, the beheading of the Saint who thwarted her criminal passion.
On this day, Saint John completes his mission, adding to the testimony he gave to Christ at His Baptism, the testimony of his Martyrdom. He was put to death towards the Passover, one year before The Passion of Jesus; but the Anniversary is Solemnised on the day when his Venerable head was found at Emesa, in Syria, in 453 A.D.
It is related in ancient legends that, on a Winter's day, when Salome was dancing on a frozen river, the ice broke and, closing again, cut off the head of the immodest dancer.
Mass: Loquébar.
Commemoration: Saint Sabina. Martyr.
These two feast days wonderfully illustrated by Zephyrinus, yesterday the great Doctor of the Western Church, S. Augustine, who Dom Gueranger tells us barely avoided martyrdom several times at the hands of the Donatist faction; and now today S. John the Baptist, of whom Our Lord Himself said “none other born of woman was greater than he” (Matt. 11:11; Luke 7:28), who did actually suffer the most cruel and capricious martyrdom (at the whim of a mere “dancing girl” as Dom Gueranger says) are punctuation marks in this time of the Christian liturgical year. S. Augustine, on the one hand who preserved volumes of thought in Christian theology as well as the ideal of daily singing the Psalter in the religious order he founded; and S. John the Baptist, “the prophesied Elijah,” who ends the Old Testament era of the Prophets by pointing to Christ, sttikingly lead into the fall season of the Triumph of the Cross, Sep. 14th. -Comment by Dante P.
ReplyDeleteA magnificent Commentary from Dante P, our Mediæval Liturgical and Historical Correspondent, for which we are most grateful.
DeleteDante P beautifully.sums up the importance of the two Feasts mentioned above: Saint Augustine and Saint John the Baptist.
How wonderful to read of Saint Augustine, that he: “. . . had the ideal of daily singing the Psalter in the Religious Order he Founded”.
One wonders whether the current accumulation of “Modernistic” Bishops, etc, would have banned Saint Augustine from so doing.
And, if so, one is put in mind of Our Saviour's comment (and slightly changing it): “ . . . if you stop me daily singing the Psalter, the very stones would commence singing the Psalter”.
Another excellent point made by Dante P was that Saint John the Baptist: “ . . . ended the Old Testament era of the Prophets by pointing to Christ. . . ”