The Birthday of St John the Baptist

This June 24 page is a feast rather than a full single saint’s life, and it is written that way on purpose. The first question is why the Church keeps the birth of John the Baptist with such honour. John is no ordinary saint in the Christian year: sanctified before birth, the child of miraculous old age, the herald appointed to point directly to Christ, and not only a prophet but more than a prophet because he identifies the Redeemer in person rather than from afar. This account lingers over the Gospel scenes around the birth itself. The angel announces that the child is to be consecrated from the first, marked by abstinence and by a life of mortification. Zachary’s doubt is answered with silence until the promise is fulfilled.

Elizabeth conceives in old age, Mary visits her, and the unborn John leaps in the womb. At the child’s circumcision, family expectations are set aside, the name John is confirmed, and Zachary’s speech returns in the Benedictus that the Church still sings daily. The focus then widens from narrative to liturgy. This is one of the earliest fixed feasts in the calendar, and the date of June 24 rather than June 25 is tied to the old Roman way of reckoning time and to Christmas exactly six months away in that system. This account also keeps the symbolism long loved by preachers: after John’s feast the days begin to shorten, while after Christ’s birth they begin to lengthen, fitting the Forerunner’s own words, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” The result is a page less about new biographical detail and more about why the Church has always treated John’s very coming into the world as a public joy.