June 24 is celebrated as the birthday ("Nativity") of St. John the Baptist. In the Gospel of Luke we read that the angel of the Lord appeared to the priest Zechariah and told him that he would have a son, whom he was to name John. The angel continues, "He will be your joy and delight and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord; he must drink no wine, no strong drink; even from his mother's womb he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, and he will bring back many of the Israelites to the Lord their God. With the Spirit and power of Elijah, he will go before him to reconcile fathers to their children and the disobedient to the good sense of the upright, preparing for the Lord a people fit for him." Luke 1:14-17 (See also Luke 1:5-16, 18-80.)
The gospels tell us that when John had grown up he lived in the desert and came to the Jordan River preaching repentance and baptism for the forgiveness of sins. He also said that one mightier than he was to come after him. Jesus came to him and insisted on being baptized, after which Jesus began his public ministry of preaching and healing. (See Matthew 3, Mark 1:1-15, Luke 3:1-22, and John 1:6-8, 19-37, and 3:22-30.)
After describing Jesus' transfiguration, where Moses and Elijah appeared, Matthew tells us his disciples asked, " 'Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?' He replied, 'Elijah is indeed coming, and he will set everything right again; however I tell you that Elijah has come already and they did not recognize him but treated him as they pleased; and the Son of man will suffer similarly at their hands.' Then the disciples understood that he was speaking of John the Baptist." Matthew 17:10-13.
In Morning Prayer for this day, we read Malachi 3:23-24 — "Lo, I will send you Elijah, the prophet,/ Before the day of the Lord comes, the great and terrible day,/ To turn the hearts of the fathers to their children. and the hearts of the children to their fathers,/ Lest I come and strike the land with doom." This passage is quoted by the angel to Zechariah in describing John, and it is a source for the belief that Elijah would return before the Messiah appeared. It also leads me to talk about my father, who was born on St. John's day 100 years ago.
His Protestant parents knew well that June 24 is St. John's Day, so when he was born on that day, they called him John. And since I was named for him, this is also my "nameday."
Dad was a lawyer (mostly wills and estates), who died at the age of 68, leaving my mother well enough off that she was able to continue to live as she had been accustomed, and my 1/3 share of the investments from her estate, plus the house (my brothers have their own places) and my federal pension, keep me going comfortably so far.
He was an extremely honest man, and generous as well. My mother noted that no appeal for funds went unanswered — and he was on a lot of charities' mailing lists.
But unfortunately, he and I were not close. The reasons are not clear, but I think it was principally from my side, because I don't recall anything bad that he ever did. Toward the end of his life, however, we began to get a bit closer. At that time he smoked a pipe a lot, and when we were in the sailboat races he had me light his pipe for him, so that he would not have to take his hands off the tiller or his eyes off the sails. I wonder if he also realized that it was a form of male bonding, sort of like drinking from the same glass — a kiss at one remove. And there was the time I asked him to show me his boyhood home in Chelmsford (the l was silent). Obviously he hadn't been by there for a long time. As we rode north on North Rd. he knew the houses that had been on either side of his home, but Rte. 495 was between them. I was sorry to have been the unwitting occasion of his finding out that the place he remembered so fondly was gone.
He graduated from Dartmouth College. Dartmouth's motto is "Vox clamantis in deserto," "The voice of one who cries in the wilderness," a line from Isaiah which the gospels apply to St. John.
So it all comes together: John, Dad, and me, with one further connection. The monastery I was at for a couple of years was Benedictine, and commentators have noted that St. Gregory's biography of St. Benedict contains a number of elements which parallel events in the life of Elijah, whose role as forerunner of the Messiah was fulfilled by John the Baptist. So if there was not the emotional bond which would have been ideal, I feel that there is at least a strong spiritual bond between my dad and me, based on our sharing of the name of John and our various associations with him.
Long post — sorry, but it's a big day for me.
P.S. If it weren't for John the Baptist, we wouldn't have this hymn for Vespers, and Antwerp would be a dull place. Thank you, St. John, for "The Sound of Music."
