Saturday 4 August
(Memorial) St John Vianney • Matthew 14:1-12
Adultery, erotic dancing and murder all play a part in today’s reading. Whoever said reading the Bible was boring? The wonderful thing about the Scriptures is that they do not hide or gloss over the darker side of human nature but rather expose it and shine God’s bright light on it.
Herod Antipas had persuaded Herodias, wife of his brother Philip, to leave Philip and become his own wife instead. Herodias was, we can safely assume, fed up to the back teeth with John the Baptist’s public condemnation of their relationship. Never one to mince his words and, to be fair to him, never one to avoid direct confrontation, John the Baptist said to Herod, ‘It is not lawful for you to have her’ (v. 4). Clearly this did not endear himself to her – in fact, it cost him his life. At a banquet to celebrate Herod’s birthday, Herodias’s daughter danced for Herod in a way which was so pleasing to him that he promised on oath to give her anything she asked for. After consulting with her mother, she asked not for riches or wealth or position but for the head of John the Baptist (see Mark 6:21-29).
John the Baptist was the last of the Old Testament prophets. True and faithful to his calling, he had prepared the way for the Lord. The Church has, since the beginning, owed him a great debt and remembers him through the course of the liturgical year with great solemnity and celebration. John the Baptist had an approach to his faith which was rigorous and ascetic, wearing coarse camel-hair garments and eating wild honey. He was a kind of wild man of the desert, dedicated to a life of abstinence and repentance.
The Lord, has over the centuries, raised up men and women with a single-minded and focused vision to serve him with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. Among these great saints was St John Vianney, whose feast day we celebrate today. He was, one could say, very much in the spirit of John the Baptist. He was famously given to long periods of fasting, living on a staple diet of potatoes which he kept under his bed, and it is said that he did real battle with the devil, whom he called ‘the Grappin’.
The more I pray, the more I want to pray. The less I pray, the less I want to pray. (St John Vianney)
Jeremiah 26:11-16, 24 • Psalm 68(69):15-16, 30-34
Matthew 14:1-12
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