The Memorial of the Passion of Saint John the Baptist

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/082912.cfm

The Seminary at
Saint Meinrad Archabbey

Blessed are you who fear the LORD,
who walk in his ways!
For you shall eat the fruit of your handiwork;
blessed shall you be, and favored.

I was surprised to discover the new name for this ancient feast. I suppose this is the title given by our new translation of the Mass. It is as precise and less graphic than beheading, and perhaps a gentler title for the gentle souls among us.

Speaking of beheading, I started my Catholic education in Saint Denis Church, on Cane Run Road in Louisville, in the church that was razed in the late 1960's. There was a wonderful stained-glass window of Saint Denis, beheaded, standing upright in his bishops' regalia, holding his head with the miter still atop it under his left shoulder. As a first grader I was awed by that picture. It took me quite a while to make sense of it. Someone explained, perhaps the good sisters who taught us, that the Bishop-martyr had picked up his head and walked with it after he was decapitated. Such is the power of the imagination on little ones. We were given to literal interpretations of religious imagery in those days. Some people still object to seeing Saint Francis worshiping Jesus in Bethlehem. "He wasn't born yet!" they cry.

Returning to the feast of the Passion of Saint John the Baptist. This story too fascinates believers and invites artists from painters to choreographers to describe it in their art. Sometimes they get carried away with the erotic possibilities of Salome's dance. I am inclined to believe she was only a little girl, perhaps four years old, but a wicked little kid who would add to her mother's barbaric suggestion, "on a platter." But that's not to say some perverts won't discover erotic possibilities even with a toddler's dancing.  Nor that King Herod and his courtiers weren't aware of it.

But, turning to a more Christian and mature interpretation, I see a contrast between Jesus' death and that of Saint John. Where Jesus was tried and convicted by several tribunals -- the Sanhedrin, Pilate, Herod and the mob -- John died by the whim of a child. Where Jesus was publicly displayed on a cross by the gates of Jerusalem, John lay in the pitch black of a dungeon. Where Jesus spoke words of blessing and compassion, John died in silence.

But both men also died for speaking the truth. John was doing something that remains controversial to this day, he was defending the institution of marriage! 

"It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife." and, predictably, "Herodias harbored a grudge against him."

From what I have read, martyrs are rarely executed explicitly for their fidelity to Jesus. It is usually something less. The earliest martyrs would not pledge fidelity to the Roman emperor, because it involved a kind of worship. Some refused military service to a pagan empire. Some were suspected of subverting the government. Some were simply executed as priests or religious. Saint Maximillian Kolbe volunteered to take another man's place. Blessed John Paul II called him a "martyr for love." Saint Charles Lwanga was protecting boys from the sexual cravings of the opium-addled king. Two Polish friars in Peru were murdered for their efforts to organize the poor by Sendero Luminoso, communist terrorists.

And, of course, not all martyrs (Greek witnesses) are murdered.  Today, people who speak in defense of marriage are accused of intolerance, as if tolerance is the only virtue in the pantheon of values. They are said to have no compassion for women who suffer violence in marriage, and gays who are not inclined to marriage. They don't respect the rights of gays, although the Catholic Church has clearly taught that homosexuals should not be subject to violence or to discrimination in housing, job employment, health care and other public services. Eventually, true martyrs will be consigned to the darkness of Saint John's dungeon and quietly, permanently silenced. 

Fortunately, it's not that easy to suppress the truth. It has a way of reappearing in public conversation despite every effort to control it.  Marriage is built upon the solid rock of faith and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matt 16:18) 

Truth will always invite witnesses to speak for it; and, like Saint John, they will continue to throw themselves into the fray.