Also known as Audrey, Æthelthryth (d. AD 679) was a princess in East Anglia, virgin queen of the Fenlands and later of Northumbria, before following a vocation to become a nun, Saint Wilfrid of York being her spiritual director. She later founded the double monastery at Ely. More about her here. Our Mass intention today was the Holy Souls, and this Mass was second in the sequence of nine Masses for the Holy Souls.
Big day tomorrow. Saint John the Baptist is a major patron Saint of the Latin Church, the Roman Church, in particular because of the dedication of the cathedral of the Holy Father in Rome, also known as the archbasilica of the Saviour and Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist, or Saint John in Lateran. The Roman Rite is littered with references to the Holy Forerunner or Herald of Christ and tomorrow we celebrate one of only three birthdays in the Mass, aside from our Lord's own and our Lady's in September.
So let's have a quick look at the circumstances of the birth of John. Here from the beginning of the Gospel of Saint Luke:
"In the days when Herod was king of Judaea, there was a priest called Zachary, of Abia’s turn of office, who had married a wife of Aaron’s family, by name Elizabeth; they were both well approved in God’s sight, following all the commandments and observances of the Lord without reproach. They had no child; Elizabeth was barren, and both were now well advanced in years. He, then, as it happened, was doing a priest’s duty before God in the order of his turn of office; and had been chosen by lot, as was the custom among the priests, to go into the sanctuary of the Lord and burn incense there, while the whole multitude of the people stood praying without, at the hour of sacrifice. Suddenly he saw an angel of the Lord, standing at the right of the altar where incense was burnt. Zachary was bewildered at the sight, and overcome with fear; but the angel said, 'Zachary, do not be afraid; thy prayer has been heard, and thy wife Elizabeth is to bear thee a son, to whom thou shalt give the name of John. Joy and gladness shall be thine, and many hearts shall rejoice over his birth, for he is to be high in the Lord’s favour; he is to drink neither wine nor strong drink; and from the time when he is yet a child in his mother’s womb he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost. He shall bring back many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God, ushering in his advent in the spirit and power of an Elias. He shall unite the hearts of all, the fathers with the children, and teach the disobedient the wisdom that makes men just, preparing for the Lord a people fit to receive him." - Gospel of S. Luke, 1: 5-17
I'll make some quick observations. Saint Zachary was a priest and his wife Elisabeth (Hebrew Elisheva, 'God is abundance') was of the tribe of Aaron, the priestly caste of the Hebrew nation. Naturally then, John takes on a priestly role himself, although in a different way from his father Zachary, for he makes an offering of his life in becoming a Nazarite for all his life and then the herald of the long-awaited Messiah. His whole life can be given in that last line, where the angel says that he brings with his life the spirit and power of an Elijah (Elias, in the Greek pronunciation), for the prophet Malachi had predicted that Elijah would arrive before the Messiah:
"Trust me, a day is coming that shall scorch like a furnace; stubble they shall be before it, says the Lord of hosts, all the proud, all the wrong-doers, caught and set alight, and neither root nor branch left them. But to you that honour My Name there shall be a sunrise of restoration, swift-winged, bearing redress; light-hearted as frisking calves at stall you shall go out to meet it, ay, and trample on your godless enemy, ashes, now, to be spurned under foot, on that day when the Lord of hosts declares Himself at last. Yours to keep the law ever in mind, statute and award I gave to assembled Israel through Moses, that was my servant. And before ever that day comes, great day and terrible, I will send Elias to be your prophet; he it is shall reconcile heart of father to son, heart of son to father; else the whole of earth should be forfeit to my vengeance." - Prophecy of Malachi, chapter 4
The day of the Lord is an item in the prophecies of the Messiah, the dreadful day when the Lord will once more judge His people, as he did centuries ago in the desert. That's why the prophecy speaks of the Law once given in the desert being kept always in mind; Isaiah had said that this Law would be engraved onto the very hearts of the elect in later days, no longer kept in obedience of written word, but living among the people. And this is why we celebrate the birth of the Herald; it's a strong factor in the entire prophecy of the coming of the Messiah and instrinsically linked to it. The prophecy above is as much about John as about Christ Himself.
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