READING OF THE DAY
SIR 48:1-4, 9-11
In those days,
like a fire there appeared the prophet Elijah
whose words were as a flaming furnace.
Their staff of bread he shattered,
in his zeal he reduced them to straits;
By the Lord’s word he shut up the heavens
and three times brought down fire.
How awesome are you, Elijah, in your wondrous deeds!
Whose glory is equal to yours?
You were taken aloft in a whirlwind of fire,
in a chariot with fiery horses.
You were destined, it is written, in time to come
to put an end to wrath before the day of the LORD,
To turn back the hearts of fathers toward their sons,
and to re-establish the tribes of Jacob.
Blessed is he who shall have seen you
and who falls asleep in your friendship.
GOSPEL OF THE DAY
MT 17:9A, 10-13
As they were coming down from the mountain,
the disciples asked Jesus,
“Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?”
He said in reply, “Elijah will indeed come and restore all things;
but I tell you that Elijah has already come,
and they did not recognize him but did to him whatever they pleased.
So also will the Son of Man suffer at their hands.”
Then the disciples understood
that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist.
WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER
A Church inspired by John the Baptist “exists to proclaim her Bridegroom” and “to proclaim this word even to martyrdom”. Concelebrating with the Pope was Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture; taking part in the Mass were priests and personnel of the dicastery, as well as staff of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology and of the Vatican’s Philatelic Office.
On the Solemnity of St John the Baptist the Holy Father spoke of the prophet. Who really was John? John himself told the scribes and Pharisees he was a voice crying in the wilderness, the Pope went on, “he was preaching about another who was yet to come”. The meaning of his life was to prepare the way for another. In all this lies “the mystery of John” who “never makes the word his own”. St John is the one who points to him, who teaches, the voice that indicates Another.
In sum, he is “a voice, not a word, a light but not his own, John seems to be nothing”. This is John’s “vocation”. “When we contemplate the life of this man, so great, so powerful — everyone believed he was the Messiah — when we think of how this life was annihilated, his last days spent in a dark prison, we discover a mystery”. We only know that “his head ended on a platter as a great gift from a dancer to an adulteress. I believe it is impossible to sink any lower, to annihilate oneself”.
The Pope has no doubts. “The model we are offered today is John”, the model of “a Church ever at the service of the Word”; and he urged the faithful to pray for “the grace to imitate John”, to be “solely a Church-voice which points to the Word, even to martyrdom”.
(S. Marta, 24 June 2013)