Homily for Thursday, 29 August 2019‒ Memorial of the Passion of St. John the Baptist

Readings of the day: Jeremiah 1:17-19; Psalm 17:1-2, 3-4a, 5-6ab, 15ab, 17; Mark 6:17-29

Thursday of the 21st week in Ordinary Time

This homily was given at St. James Church, Vernon, BC, Canada.

How many saints get two feast days, one to commemorate their birth and another to commemorate their death, in our Church?

The answer to this question is that two saints are commemorated in our Church both on their dates of birth and dates of death: Mary, mother of God, and John the Baptist. But why, when our Church already offers us the beautiful Solemnity of the Nativity of John the Baptist, which we celebrate on June 24, do we add this memorial of his brutal death by beheading at the hands of King Herod Antipas, who caves in to the demands of his wife Herodias and daughter Salome to put John to death?

Today’s memorial of the Passion of John the Baptist dates back to the earliest centuries of the Church. It is almost as old as the Solemnity of the Nativity of John the Baptist, and is one of the few feasts to have been celebrated in both Eastern and Western Christianity that early in the Church’s history.

Today, I think, this memorial of the Passion of John the Baptist serves as an “echo” celebration to that of the Passion of Jesus Christ, which we commemorate through Holy Thursday and Good Friday. But it also serves as a reminder of our sisters and brothers in faith who continue to give their lives for their faith and for its truths, moral or otherwise. This reality may seem distant to us here in a place like Canada, but perhaps a greater proportion of the world’s total number of Christians are subject to anti-Christian violence or give their lives for their faith than at any time in history.

People of faith, not only Christians, are harmed and killed simply for being who they are; for the most part they are not people who preach religious faith or its teachings in a way that would upset people. They are not the likes of John the Baptist, who as we know from our Gospel confronted Herod Antipas over his wrongful marriage to his brother’s wife Herodias, and so drew the ire of Herodias, who wanted John dead.

The martyrs of today are, by and large, silent witnesses; prophets more by the integrity of their lives than by their words of teaching or preaching. So how can we, here in a place where it is quite safe to practice our Christian faith, live in solidarity with our sisters and brothers today whose faith leaves them in harm’s way?

Like our sisters and brothers in faith who continue to suffer violence and even give their lives for their faith in our world, our first way of living in solidarity with them will usually be to live as they do: Quietly, humbly, but with integrity. Some of us, though, may be called to proclaim truths that will cause discomfort; cause us to be ridiculed, even in our personal and social interactions. We will be called to defend the dignity of all human life, from the first moments of conception to natural death. We are and will be called to live and speak to the truth of the dignity of all creation, against unchecked concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, which breeds (if we are hearing the news reports just within these latest weeks) the evils of greed, nationalism, racism and other forms of xenophobia; the destruction of forests and the accelerated extinction of species.

John the Baptist lived and gave his life for the truths he discerned by faith in his time. In solidarity with John and many people of faith who live and give their lives in similar ways still today, we are and will be called to do the same.