The Baptist

John appears as the dividing line between the two Testaments, the Old and the New.  Our Lord himself teaches something about John when He talks about 'the law and the prophets down to John the Baptist'.  He is the personification of antiquity and the announcement of new times.  As representing antiquity, he is born to elderly parents.  As one who is a harbinger of new times, he shows that he has been a prophet from his mother's womb.  He has not yet been born when, at Our Lady's arrival, he leaps for joy inside his mother. (Lk 1:76-77) John is called 'the prophet of the Most High', because his mission is 'to go before the Lord to prepare his ways, teaching the knowledge of salvation to his people'.  (St. Augustine, Sermon 293, 2)


John the Baptist was considered, by many, crazy.  He wore animal skins and ate locusts.  He wasn't cool, hip.  He simply was obedient to God's will for him.  If we are following Christ, truly, we must be out of our comfort zone ...often.  Speaking the truth means not being cool or hip.  I wish it were different.  I've spoken to so many parents recently who speak of the loneliness in doing what is right ...what is best for ourselves, our children.  The most innocuous thing becomes a great affront to others.  Being particular about how our children dress, especially our daughters, what they watch, material possessions that everybody has ...moves us to a space that is outside the norm.  How many of us are walking this path alone, losing strength with the weight of the culture against us?  But we are not alone, we walk with Christ ...and each other.  Its time we spoke.
Our silence, our caving in, validates a culture that literally destroys souls.  Who wants to wear the figurative animal skins ...eat locusts?  Who?  I don't!  But, we have to, if we are to truly follow Christ.  He asks for everything, not because He is selfish, unkind, unloving.  He asks us for our purity of love.  He asks us to not "shop" among His teachings, but to accept, as a gift, the treasure of all of it.  I can't "take what I like and leave the rest."  Wouldn't that be easy, nice, simple.  What I fear in doing that, and have watched  happen many, many times, is a slow tumble away from all of the truth.  Once I turn away from just something little, I open the door.  I open the door to leave.  Oh, I can fool myself ...no, I won't leave.  Everything else is fine ...just this one little thing ...I don't really have to accept, pay attention to.  And then, something else, that is just a tad beyond my comfort zone, something that separates me or my kids from the norm.  Just this one more minor adjustment.  Why, its not really an adjustment at all.  I simply don't believe it ...it really is actually silly.  Now that I think of it, this too is simply outrageous ...it makes no sense.  And now here I am.  You know, God gave me my own intellect to exercise, and though these dowdy old men have held fast to this tradition, it really is dated, wouldn't you agree?  I know that's what God used to teach, but we've updated things today. Surely Christ wouldn't expect me to hold to something that was true of the time He lived.  I can, respectfully, disagree with God.  Can't I?  Because doesn't God just want me to be HAPPY!!!!  Oh yes, that's right, God is a HAPPY God.  He's like a butterfly, happily dancing through my life.
But here's the turn.  God is not a happy God.  He is a joyful God.  And joy does not exist without sorrow, without suffering.  Sorrow and suffering will not come until we are outside our comfort zone.  There are times we are shoved out of our comfort zone ...like now.  I had no choice in this!  But there are more times where I must choose to step out, take the punch, the jeering, the isolation and marginalization if I am to claim myself a true follower of Christ.
The joy of the nativity does not exist ...is not real ...without the sorrow, the suffering, the blood, the pain, the nails, the wood, the spit, the gall ...the outrageous audacity...of the Cross.  Without the crucifixion  ...there is no joy.
How I wish I could tell you this is not true.  Because then I could tell myself its not true, and I wouldn't have to endure this suffering.  Phoebe could live. The paradox.  Phoebe. Joy/Cross. Suffering.  My daughters death has invited me into the paradox.  The joy and the suffering at once.
I'm beginning to see, just a glimmer.  Am I living my life to bring other's to Christ.  Will my knee bend at the manger?  Will my knee bend at the cross?
Am I willing to be like John the Baptist ...I am the voice of the one crying in the wilderness; prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.  "He is the only voice that announces Jesus.  That is his mission, his life, his personality.  His whole being is defined by Jesus, as should be the case in our own lives, in the life of any Christian.  What is important in our lives is Jesus."  Fernandez, In Conversation with God, vol. 1, p. 59
Let my own voice ring out true.  Christ is my Lord and Savior.  I await His birth ...His coming.  With my daughter held close to my heart, I follow the steps of His first Tabernacle ...Blessed Mother.  I am on my way.

Eternal rest grant unto Phoebe and may perpetual light shine upon her.  May she rest in peace. Amen.