Memorial of the Passion of Saint John the Baptist
August 29, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082924.cfm

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John had said to Herod,
“It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.”
Herodias harbored a grudge against him
and wanted to kill him but was unable to do so.
Herod feared John, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man,
and kept him in custody.
When he heard him speak he was very much perplexed,
yet he liked to listen to him.
Matthew 6:18-20

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Our Gospel today describes the manner of death for John the Baptist. It is a sad and horrifying story. But the sadder story is how Herodias’s grudge poisoned both her heart and the cowardly heart of Herod.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We examine our own hearts for any shadow of grudge or ill-feeling we might hold against others. It may be a small fracture, but it can widen over the years to become spiritually poisonous. We pray for the grace to be able to heal, to change, to forgive, and to be truly compassionate.

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Poetry: Things That Cause a Quiet Life – Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

My friend, the things that do attain
The happy life be these, I find:
The riches left, not got with pain,
The fruitful ground; the quiet mind;

The equal friend; no grudge, no strife;
No charge of rule nor governance;
Without disease the healthy life;
The household of continuance;

The mean diet, no dainty fare;
True wisdom joined with simpleness;
The night discharged of all care,
Where wine the wit may not oppress;

The faithful wife, without debate;
Such sleeps as may beguile the night:
Content thyself with thine estate,
Neither wish death, nor fear his might.

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Music: J.S. Bach / Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam, BWV 7
This is one of several church cantatas which Johann Sebastian Bach composed for the Feast of St. John the Baptist.