About St. John the Baptist
St. John the Baptist, the last and greatest prophet before Jesus Christ, lived a radical life of asceticism and fearless preaching in the Judean wilderness. Born to the elderly priest Zechariah and Elizabeth (Mary’s cousin) after an angelic announcement, he was set apart from birth as the forerunner who would prepare the way for the Messiah. Living in the desert, dressed in camel’s hair and surviving on locusts and wild honey, he attracted huge crowds with his powerful calls for repentance and his baptism of conversion in the Jordan River. He famously recognized Jesus as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” and baptized him, though declaring himself unworthy to untie Jesus’s sandals. His uncompromising preaching against moral corruption led him to publicly condemn King Herod Antipas for marrying his brother’s wife, Herodias. This bold stand for truth led to his imprisonment and eventual execution when Herodias’s daughter Salome, after her infamous dance, demanded his head on a platter. Jesus called him the greatest of those born of women, and he remains unique among saints as the only one besides Mary whose birth and death are both celebrated in the liturgical calendar.
Prayers & Devotions
