Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar

Today we celebrate the birth of Saint John the Baptist. The words of the Prophet Isaiah are well-suited to describe this great biblical figure who stands between the Old and the New Testaments. In the long line of Israel’s prophets and just men and women, John “the Baptizer” was placed by God’s providence immediately before the Messiah, in order to prepare the way before him by his preaching and by the witness of his life… “From my mother’s womb you called me” (Ps 71[70],6). Today we can make our own these words of the Psalmist. God knew and loved us even before our eyes could contemplate the marvels of creation. At birth all men and women receive a human name. But even before that, each one has a divine name: the name by which God the Father knows and loves them from eternity and for eternity. This is true for everyone, with the exception of none. No one is nameless in God’s sight! All have equal value in his eyes: all are different, yet all are equal, and all are called to be sons and daughters in the Son. “His name is John” (Lk 1:63). Before his astonished kinsmen, Zechariah confirms that this is the name of his son, writing it on a tablet. God himself, through his angel, had given that name, which in Hebrew means “God is benevolent”. God is benevolent to human beings: he wants them to live; he wants them to be saved. God is benevolent to his people: he wants to make of them a blessing for all the nations of the earth. God is benevolent to humanity: he guides its pilgrim way towards the land where peace and justice reign. All this is contained in that name: John!
Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team

“Behold the King is coming, let us hasten to meet our Savior” (Advent liturgy) Solomon put it very well when he said: “As cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country” (Prv 25,25). He certainly brings good news who announces the coming of the Savior, the reconciliation of the world and the good things of the world to come. “How welcome the feet of them that preach peace and bring good tidings!” (Is 52,7)… Such messengers are waters of refreshment and a draught of saving wisdom to a soul athirst for God. For such a soul, the herald of the coming and of the other mysteries of the Savior, draws and proffers water “with joy from the springs of the Savior” (Is 12,3). And so it seems to me that the soul is heard to reply to the messenger… in the words of Elisabeth. It has drunk of the same spirit as she has and says: “Whence is this that my Lord should come to me? Behold, as soon as your salutation sounded in my ears, the Spirit in my heart leapt for joy, earnestly desiring to hurry off to meet God its Savior.” And really, brethren, we should go to meet the coming Christ with joy in our heart… “O my Savior and my God! (Ps 43[42],5) what an honor that you should have saluted your servants. How much the greater that you should have saved them?… You have given us salvation not only by greeting with the kiss of peace in your Incarnation those you had previously saluted with words of peace, but, more, by effecting their salvation through your death on the Cross.” Let us therefore rise up with joyful eagerness and hasten to welcome our Savior. Let us adore him and salute him at a distance, crying out to him: “Deliverance, Lord, deliverance! Lord, grant us the victory! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” (Ps 118[117],25-26).
Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team

“Most blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb (…)” For all ages will call you blessed, as you said (Lk 1:48). The daughters of Jerusalem, that is to say, the Church, saw you and proclaimed your happiness (…) For you are the royal throne near which the angels stood contemplating their Master and Creator, who was seated on it (Dan 7:9). You have become the spiritual Eden, more sacred and more divine than the former one. The earthly Adam lived in the former; in you lives the Lord who came from heaven (1 Cor 15:47). Noah’s ark was a prefiguration of you; it saved the seed of the second creation, for you gave birth to Christ, the world’s salvation, who submerged sin and pacified the floods. It was you whom the burning bush described ahead of time, whom the tables depicted, on which God wrote (Ex 31:18), which the ark of the covenant told about; it is you whom the golden urn, the candelabra, (…) and Aaron’s staff that blossomed (Num 17:23) clearly prefigured. (…) I almost left out Jacob’s ladder. Just as Jacob saw heaven united with the earth by means of the two ends of the ladder, and the angels descending and ascending on it, and as the one who is really the strong and invincible one engaged in a symbolic struggle with him, thus you yourself became the mediator and ladder by which God came down to us and took upon himself the weakness of our substance, embracing it and closely uniting it to him.

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team