This evening, we observe the vigil of the Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist. In addition to this solemnity, the Church celebrates two other solemnities this week. Friday is the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. Our Saturday Vigil Mass will be the Vigil of the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, which we will celebrate on Sunday.
The convergence of all three solemnities doesn’t always occur. The Solemnity of the Sacred Heart is observed each year on the day after the octave of Corpus Christi ends. As it is throughout most of the rest of the world, normatively and traditionally, Corpus Christi is the Thursday after Trinity Sunday.
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, in turn, is the Sunday after Pentecost and Pentecost is fifty days after Easter. All this simply means that the date of the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart changes each year, depending on the date of Easter.
By contrast, the Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist is a solemnity with a fixed date: 24 June. At least for those of us in the northern hemisphere, this solemnity fittingly occurs just a few days after the summer solstice. Usually, the summer solstice falls on 21 June but some years, like this year, it happens on 20 June and sometimes on 19 June. 29 June is the fixed date for the Solemnity of Peter and Paul.
It is fitting for the solemnity of the Baptist’s birth to fall near the summer solstice because the birth of John the Baptist, the precursor of the Christ, marks the dawn of a new day, the day of salvation. Even now in many northern European countries, though it has largely lost its religious and liturgical connection, Saint John’s Day is a time for nighttime dinner gatherings and parties: a way to celebrate and enjoy together the long days of summer.
In our Gospel this evening, much is made of Zechariah belonging to the tribe of Levi and to the subdivision of that tribe, the “division of Abijah.” Much more is made of Zechariah being chosen by lot to burn incense in the sanctuary. According to Luke, John’s father was a Levite. But being of the division of Abijah, he was not, strictly speaking, a kohen, a priest. But, according to Luke, his wife, Elizabeth, was a descendant of Aaron.1
Deisis (John the Baptist) of Kirillo-Belozersky iconostasis (15th century, Russia), Wikipedia Commons
Luke’s assertion of Zecheriah’s and Elizabeth’s Levitical kinship has interesting theological implications for Jesus. As set forth by Luke, Mary, the Mother of our Lord, is related to Elizabeth. She is closely enough related to go and stay with her upon learning she was pregnant. Is Mary, too, at least in Luke’s account, of the tribe of Levi? If so, it’s interesting to think about the theological implications for our Lord.
New Testament scholars, like the late Father John P. Meier, whose masterly multi-volume study, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, suggest that Jesus belonged to the House of David, which means he belonged to the tribe of Judah (not Levi), through Joseph. It also bears noting that Levites, like Zechariah, who were not numbered among the kohanim, from patristic times, have been associated with deacons because they, too, assisted the priests. In any case, Luke goes to great pains to show the Baptist’s Levitical credentials.
Given that in ancient Israel, the king was not a priest, how to reconcile Jesus being the true High Priest while not being a kohen or even a Levite is something taken up by the inspired author of the Letter to the Hebrews in what is now chapter seven of that scriptural book. Sense is made of this using Melchizedek, the King of Salem and priest of the Most High God, about whom we heard in yesterday’s first reading from Genesis 14.
The Baptist, like Jeremiah in our first reading, was chosen from his mother’s womb not just to be a prophet, but to be the Messiah’s forerunner. He is also the fulfillment of Malachi’s prophesy about Elijah’s return.2 Jesus identifies John with Elijah.3 John is the seal of the prophets and, according to the Lord, the greatest prophet and perhaps even the greatest of men.4
Among Latin Catholics, veneration of John the Baptist has greatly waned. Traditionally, he has been almost as highly venerated as our Blessed Mother. In Eastern Rite Catholic and Orthodox Churches, Christ, flanked by the Baptist and the Blessed Virgin, is featured on the level of the iconostasis known as the Deisis Tier. John the Baptist should be featured in every publicly prayed Litany of the Saints.
A bit later in the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel, in a canticle known by its first word in Latin, Benedictus, which is recited each day during Morning Prayer, Zechariah, having regained his voice after being struck dumb by the angel for expressing incredulity about his wife bearing a son, sings of his son:
And you, my child, will be called prophet of the Most High,So, on the Vigil of our celebration of his birth, Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.
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 will break upon usto shine on those who dwell in darkness and shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace [modified to match Liturgy of the Hours]5
1 Luke 1:5.↩
2 Malachi 3:23-24.↩
3 Matthew 17:10-13; Mark 9:11-13.↩
4 Matthew 11:11.↩
5 Luke 1:76-79.↩
No comments:
Post a Comment