Nativity of St. John the Baptist

   June 24 is referred to as the Summer Christmas in my old missal. It posits that Our Lord's Nativity, Christmas, sees the coming lengthening of days. St. John the Baptist's birth comes as the days begin to shorten. He must decrease as Christ increases. I thought that an interesting take.

   As so many Christian feasts were made to take the place of pagan feasts, where fires were lit to honor the sun, for instance, so the Church christianized the fire or light, as symbolizing St. John, "a burning and brilliant lamp." (John 3:35). It was a custom in olden days to have St. John bonfires.

   The Gospel for the feastday, Luke I:57-68, tells of John's birth and his naming according to the direction given his father, Zachary, by the Angel Gabriel.  "And Zachary his father was filled with the Holy Ghost; and he prophesied, saying; Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, because He hath visited and wrought the redemption of His people."  Luke relates in I:76, "Thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the most High; for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways." 

   Elizabeth, John's mother, was the cousin of Mary, the Mother of Our Lord. It was to her that Mary went after the Annunciation, learning from the Angel Gabriel that Elizabeth, barren til then and up in years, was expecting as well.  It was upon greeting each other that the child "leapt for joy" in his mother's womb, at the realization that Mary carried the Savior. It is thought, though not doctrine, that perhaps John was cleansed of original sin at that moment, before his birth, by Christ in the womb of His mother.  Matthew 11:11 says, "Among those born of women, there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist."

                                        ****************************************

Although this has nothing specifically to do with the feast day itself, it is interesting to me, as one who had to study and teach solfeggio (the study of sol-fa), the tried and true method to learn to sing. Do -re-mi, ala Do, a deer, etc.  In the thirteenth century a Benedictine monk, Guy of Arezzo noticed that the notes of a hymn composed by Paul the Deacon, a Monte Cassino monk (and friend of Charlemagne), sung on the first syllables, formed the sequence of the first six degrees of the scale. He named each degree by the correspponding syllable. The poem, of course, was in Latin. It follows here, with the syllables in italics. I will also note the words in English.

                  Ut queant laxis resonare fibria  (Do-re)
                  Mira gestorum famuli tuorum    (Mi-fa)
                  Solve polluti Labii reatum (Sol-la)
                  Sancte  Johannes (Si  S J, sometimes spelled Ioannes  now called ti)

"That Thy servants may sing with full voice the marvels of Thy works, purify their sullied lips, O St. John."

                                 *************************************************

Speaking of monks, and apropos of nothing, our parish bulletin had a joke  that pokes good-natured fun at various orders and their idiosyncracies.
                                              
                                                    All the Lights Went Out

   During a Eucharistic Congress, a number of priests from different orders are gathered in a parish church for Vespers. While they are praying, a fuse blows and all the lights go out.  The Benedictines continue praying from memory, without missing a beat. The Jesuits begin to discuss whether the blown fuse means they are dispensed from the obligation to pray Vespers. The Franciscans compose a song of praise for God's gift of darkness. The Dominicans revisit their ongoing debate on light as a signification of the transmission of divine knowledge. The Carmelites fall into silence and slow, steady breathing. The parish priest, who is hosting the others, walks downstairs to the basement and replaces the fuse.