St. John the Baptist
January 7

St. John the Baptist is the cousin of Jesus Christ and the son of Zacharias, a priest of the order of Abia whose job in the temple was to burn incense; and of Elizabeth, a descendent of Aaron. As Zacharias was ministering in the Temple, an angel brought him news that Elizabeth would bear a child filled with the Holy Spirit from the moment of his birth. Zacharias doubted this and was thus struck incapable of speech until John’s birth.

Beginning his ministry around age 27, wearing a leather belt and a tunic of camel hair, living off locusts and wild honey, and preaching a message of repentance to the people of Jerusalem, St. John converted many and prepared the way for the coming of Jesus Christ. He baptized Christ in the Jordan River, a feast known as Theophany, after which John stepped away and told his disciples to follow Jesus. Imprisoned by King Herod for his Christian beliefs, he died a victim of the vengeance of a jealous woman; he was beheaded, and his head brought to her on a platter.

When John was preaching the Lord’s coming he was asked, “Who are you?” And he replied, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” The voice is John, but the Lord, in the beginning, was the Word. John was a voice that lasted only for a time, but Christ, the Word in the beginning, is eternal.

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