I celebrate as my onomastico or “name day” the Feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist, 29 August. “He must increase,” said the Baptist, “I must decrease” (John 3:30). I need that rule of life.
Although St Augustine of Hippo (+430) principally connects the “decrease” with John’s Nativity near the Summer Solstice and the shift to shortening days, John’s sudden, violent “decrease” occurred with his head’s removal from his shoulders, during the autumnal shortening of daylight. It’s just about now that we really start to notice that the day’s are getting shorter. I rose this morning and thought, “Gosh, it seems a lot darker.”
In the Art Institute of Chicago, there is a tempera on panel depiction of the Beheading of the Baptist by the Sienese painter Giovanni di Paolo (d 1482).
You view the instant after the deed. Seen from outside the prison, John leans out of his window, guillotine like, his headless shoulders and angled arms still in place as a massive gout of blood jets forth the jutting neck. A servant with a platter stoops for his head. The executioner sheathes his man-length blade.
John was not only a martyr for the Truth.
The miraculous son of the elderly priest Zechariah was a priestly martyr.
John stood against Herod and his crony cadre of corrupted priests who backed his violation of the truth of sexuality and marriage.
Herod used his power to sin. John’s blood exposed also priestly corruption in a way that no one could ignore.
By the way, Herod’s command to kill John, the incorruptible priest, came from his lust for a child. Salome was a “little girl” (Greek korásion).
Speaking of seeing that things are darker, that’s the direction, of course, of the aggressive homosexualist agenda. Their ultimate goal is the lowering of the legal age of consent. That’s their “brass ring“.
To their eternal shame, there are priests and bishops who are advancing the agenda.
Korásion occurs 8 times in the Synoptic Gospels involving two events, the raising of the daughter of Jairus (Matthew 9:24-25; Mark 5:41-42) and the beheading of John the Baptist (Matthew 14:11; Mark 6:22, and in v. 28 two times).
Mark deliberately applies korásion to two girls standing at the frontier between life and death.
To the daughter of Jairus Christ says, Talitha koum, “Little girl, arise” (Mark 5:41). She rises and is restored to her father. Herodias’ daughter receives the severed head of the Forerunner upon a platter (Mark 6:28).
In the house of Jairus, divine authority restores life. In Herod’s hall, disordered appetite, cowardly authority, and a mother’s hatred combine to murder the preacher of Truth.
Both events involve a young girl. One ends in life, the other in death.
WVC on Kudos to the Bishop of Wheeling-Charleston: “I hope he inspires others to do likewise. If the bishops who are not dead set against the TLM would…”
