[00:00] There are only three births that are celebrated in the Catholic Church. These births are the most obvious. Christmas, when we celebrate the birth, the Nativity of our Lord. Then you have the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and also that of St. John the Baptist.

[00:30] This shows what type of company that He's associated with in His holiness and His mission that our Lord gave Him on this earth. St. John the Baptist was praised by our Lord. He was praised by his father in the Canticle of Zechariah, which we'll read a little later. But St. John the Baptist, his birth is especially celebrated, and not many people mention this,

[01:03] but one of the reasons why his birth is celebrated is because he was sanctified in the womb. Our Lady, as Mediatrix of all Graces, when she went in haste to the hill country to help her cousin Elizabeth. Her cousin Elizabeth, obviously with child, received the greeting of Mary and at the greeting of Our Lady, the child leapt in her womb. That is when the Doctors of the Church say that St. John was sanctified in the womb. So when he was born,

[01:39] he was born in a state of sanctifying grace. Our Lord worked that miracle for him because St. John the Baptist's mission was one which probably one of the most important missions to be a voice in the desert, to be a herald of the coming of our Lord. He was the greatest of all prophets in the words of our Lord. He was a voice in the wilderness, crying out in the wilderness, "Make straight the paths, make straight the ways." He is an example of

[02:16] humility because in his single-mindedness, he concentrated only on our Lord. From a young age, he spent his time in the desert. He was eating locusts and honey. He was clothed with sackcloth or the hair skins. And he was a man of penance, preparing for Jesus' coming. As he said to people who gathered around him, "What you think I am, I am not. For there

[02:53] is one greater than I, of whom I am not worthy to untie or unfasten His sandals." He was just a voice. He was one who had to increase and then decrease when our Lord came. And he always pointed to our Lord and not to himself. He never took any glory to himself. He fasted and prayed. He was not, as he said, the bridegroom, but the friend of the bridegroom. St. John

[03:30] the Baptist's baptism was not given for sanctifying grace or sacramental baptism. That was our Lord's baptism that He would give. But St. John's baptism was one of preparation, of disposition, of, I guess you could say, of penance, of preparation for the coming of our Lord and

[04:03] the grace that our Lord wanted to give. So St. John the Baptist was one of the first who received many graces from our Lord in order to fulfill his mission. And he always pointed to our Lord, not just with his words, but also with his actions. We think of St. Francis of Assisi, who would take his young brothers out to preach. And when they would walk around the town, some of them would ask, "Well, we went to the town, but we didn't preach." And he said, "Well,

[04:37] we were always preaching." He said, "Just only sometimes we use words, but we are preaching with our actions." St. John the Baptist not only gives us an example of humility in the mission that our Lord has sent us on, but he also gives us an example of how we, in our own lives, through our actions, are to reflect Jesus Christ. That is the mission of each one of us. First of all, to have a baptism of repentance, in the sense that we're always having a conversion to

[05:12] the heart. St. John the Baptist was preparing people by a conversion of heart to dispose them, just as we try to dispose ourselves through the Penitential Act at the Mass. Everything that we do is to dispose ourselves to receive more grace from God. And that's who we encounter at Holy Communion. So every day for us, especially you who are daily communicants, is to prepare us for the source of grace, to be a St. John the Baptist in our lives, and to follow also his example of

[05:48] conversion of heart, so that in all the different ways in which our Lord wants to give us His life and increase a nurturing with His life, a growth in the life of God, that we might be able to receive it. The saints were those who disposed themselves, and constantly received a doubling of God's grace, because one, they were willing to do whatever it was that God wanted them to do, even if He never asked them to do much. They were willing, and God would take that willingness, and He would raise

[06:22] them up far beyond that which they themselves deserved. And then when they received Holy Communion, they received a constant increase of God's life in their soul. So that's one of the most important things we can do each day before Holy Communion, or just being at the Mass. Remember, there are three different ways in which we receive grace through this sacrament, because it's in a way a triple sacrament. The Sacrifice Sacrament, which is just being here at the Mass. You have

[06:58] the Presence Sacrament, just being before our Lord at any time in the Tabernacle. And then you have the Communion Sacrament. And this comes, especially, who promoted the most was St. Pope John Paul II. And he said that there are three main ways in which we can receive that grace of God. So when we think of the life of St. John, and we celebrate his birth, we're thinking of the fact that he was, as our Lord said, "There was no man born of woman

[07:33] as holy as St. John the Baptist," because he was actually sanctified in the womb. You know, we're all baptized after we're born. He, in a way, was baptized by the grace of God before he was born. So other than Our Lady, he was the holiest to come out of the womb, because obviously he wouldn't have sinned. So he was in the state of sanctifying grace. But St. John the Baptist, he proclaimed our Lord, as St. Augustine said, as a voice. Now, as a voice,

[08:12] he was passing. But as the Word, our Lord is eternal. We too, when we reflect on the voice, think of the voice is just that which carries the word in communication. It's the Word that's the most important. If you don't have the words, the voice is just a useless sound. Nobody can interpret it. But if you have the Word, the Word represents a concept that you're trying to

[08:43] communicate to somebody else. Well, St. John the Baptist was just that voice. He was just, the voice is like a mediator between the concept and, or the Word and that concept, which is the Word conceived in our hearts. So St. John the Baptist was trying to

[09:14] pass the knowledge of our Lord from him, what he received from God, to all of us, to the people at that time. So they would first, as St. Augustine said about Our Lady, that she conceived Him first in her mind and heart, before she conceived Him in her womb. And that's exactly what St. John the Baptist was trying to do, to have those who encountered, conceive our Lord first in their mind, in their hearts, before they would receive Him fully in

[09:47] sanctifying grace when the Holy Trinity would dwell in their souls. So Zechariah, in his canticle, and I'll end with this, he says, "Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel. He has come to His people and set them free. He has raised up for us a mighty Savior, born of the house of His servant David. Through His holy prophets, He promised of old that He would save us from our enemies, from the hands of all who hate us. He promised to show mercy to our fathers

[10:20] and to remember His holy covenant. This was the oath He swore to our father Abraham, to set us free from the hands of our enemies, free to worship Him without fear, holy and righteous in His sight all the days of our life." Our Lord sets us free from the hands of our enemies, from all those spiritual enemies, and we become free not to do whatever we want, but we become free, as Zechariah said, to worship Him without fear,

[10:54] holy and righteous in His sight all the days of our life. "You, my child, St. John the Baptist, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare His way, to give His people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins. In the tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high shall break upon us to shine on those who dwell in darkness, in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace."

[11:27] God shines His light in the darkness through St. John the Baptist, and He guides our feet along the way of peace, peace for those who are of goodwill, who are willing to follow our Lord, even through the desert, even to that crowning point of St. John the Baptist's life, which was his testimony, his martyrdom, for our Lord, for the truth, the way, and the life.