The Mission of St. John the Baptist
by Rev. Francis A. Baker
Second Sunday in Advent
“This is he of
whom it is written; Behold I send My messenger before Thy face, who shall
prepare Thy way before Thee.” Matthew 11:10
I
A
The
Scriptures of the Old Testament had foretold that a special messenger should
immediately precede the coming of the Messiah, whose duty would be to prepare
men’s hearts for His reception. Now, our Lord in the text tells us that
St. John the Baptist was this messenger. It is for this reason that the
Gospels read in the Church for the season of Advent are so full of the sayings
and doings of this saint.
B
In Advent the Church desires to prepare us for the twofold coming of Christ – at His Nativity and at the Last Judgment; and it is natural that she should avail herself of the labors of one who was divinely appointed for the same purpose. Accordingly, from Sunday to Sunday, during this season, she brings St. John the Baptist from his cell in the desert, clad in his rough garment, to preach to us Christians the same lessons he preached to the Jewish people centuries ago.
C
It has seemed to me, then, that I could not better serve the intentions of the Church, than by considering this morning in what the mission of St. John the Baptist as a preparation for Christ’s coming specially consisted, and what practical lessons it suggests to us.
II
A
St. John
the Baptist was of the priestly race, yet he never exercised the office of a
priest. He was not a prophet, at least in the sense of one who foretells future
events. He worked no miracles. He had no ecclesiastical position. What was he
then? What was his office? How did he prepare men for the coming of Christ?
B
The Scriptures tell us what he was. He was a “Voice” and a “Cry” – the cry of conscience, the voice of man’s immortal destiny. His mission was simple, elementary, and universal. It went deeper than ecclesiastical or ritual duties. It touched human probation to the very quick. He dealt with the great question of salvation, protested vehemently against sin, and published aloud that law of sanctity which is written on every man’s heart by the finger of God.
III
A
We have
some remains of his sermons, from which we can learn his style. “Begin not
to say,” so he speaks to the Jews, “we have Abraham as our father, for
God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these very stone." (Luke
3:8)
B
See, how he sweeps away external privileges, and goes straight to every man’s conscience. “The axe is laid now to the root of the trees, and every tree that does not bring forth good fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire.” Nothing but what is internal, nothing but what is sound at the core, can hear the scrutiny.
C
He descends to the particulars of each man’s state and condition of life. The people came to him and asked him, “What shall we do?” And he said: “He that has two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat let him do likewise.” That was a short and pithy sermon!
D
Then the officers of the custom came and asked: “What shall we do?” And he answered: “Take nothing more than that which is appointed you.” Do not rob or swindle. Do not use bribery or extortion. And the soldiers asked him, saying: “And what shall we do?” And he said: “Do not practice extortion, do not falsely accuse anyone, and be satisfied with your pay."
IV
A
Such was the preaching of St. John the Baptist, pointed, direct, homely, practical: an echo of that trumpet-blast which once shook the earth, when God gave the Ten Commandments out of the Mount. And it did its work. Our Lord himself has testified to the success of St. John’s mission. It prepared men to believe in Christ. It was the school which trained disciples for Christianity.
B
They that believed in St. John believed afterwards in Christ. On one occasion the evangelist gives it as the explanation why some believed and some rejected the words of Jesus, that they had first believed or rejected the words of the Baptist. “All the people,” such is the language I refer to, “justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John, but the Pharisees and scholars of the law despised the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him.” (Luke 7:29-30)
V
A
Now is it
difficult to explain how his preaching affected this result. Christ came
to save sinners. In point of fact, we know that this is the reason why He
has come into the world. He has come to seek and save that which is lost.
He has come to heal the broken-hearted. He has come to give us a new law,
higher and holier than the old, yet easier by the brightness of His example, and
the graces He imparts.
B
Now, unless a man feels the evil of sin, unless he wants to keep the law, unless he feels an interest, and a deep interest, in the question of his destiny, he does not care for Christ. True, our Lord has given to the understanding proofs of His divine mission, so that belief in Him may be a reasonable act; but until the conscience is stirred up, the understanding has no motive for considering these proofs.
C
To the carnal and careless Jews, the announcement of Christ’s coming was, I suppose, simply uninteresting. In some points of view, indeed, they might have welcomed Him. As a temporal prince and deliverer, His advent would have been hailed by them, but salvation from sin was a matter in which they felt no great concern.
D
What did they want with Christ? Why does He come at all to consciences which do not crave rest, and wills that need no strength? What need of a Savior, if there is no sin to be shunned, no hell to be feared, no heaven to be won, no great struggle between good and evil, no eternity in peril?
VI
A
But once
let all this be fully understood. Let a man’s conscience be fully awakened.
Let him realize his destiny, above and beyond this world; let him appreciate the
evil of sin that defeats his destiny; let him, if the case be so, perceive how
far out of the way he has gone by his sins; and then how full of interest, how
full of meaning, becomes the exclamation of St. John, as he points to Christ and
says: “Behold the Lamb of God, that takes away the sins of the world!”
B
Let a man’s spiritual nature be stirred within him; let him aspire to what is pure and high; aim at regulating his passions; struggle, amid inordinate desires and the importunities of creatures which encompass him like a flood, toward the highest good and the most perfect beauty; and oh! with what music do these words of Christ fall on his soul: “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn of Me, and you shall find rest to your souls. For My yoke is sweet, and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:29-30)
C
It seems too good to be true. He listens, and asks, “May I believe this?” “Is there really a way through this world to heaven? A sure, clear easy way?” He finds that his understanding not only allows, but compels him to believe in Christ: he is happy; he believes; his faith is a conviction into which his whole nature enters; it entwines itself with every fiber of his soul.
VII
A
The connection, then, between the preaching of the Baptist and the coming of Christ was not a temporary one. It is essential and necessary. St. John is still the forerunner of Christ. The preaching of the commandments is ever the preparation for faith. The awakening of a man’s conscience is the measure of his appreciation of Christ.
B
Our Lord gives many graces to men without their own co-operation. Many of the gifts of Providence, and the first gifts in the order of grace, are so bestowed. But an enlightened appreciation of Christianity, a personal conviction of its truth, a real and deep attachment to it, will be always in proportion to the thoroughness with which a man has sounded the depths of his own heart, to the sincerity with which sin is hated and feared, and holiness aspired after.
C
Christ is never firmly seated in the soul of man till he is enthroned on the conscience. “Unto you that fear My name, shall the Son of Justice arise, and health in his wings.” (Malachi 4:2)
And, here, my brethren, is this law or fact which I stated, we have the key to several practical questions of great importance.
VIII
A
Here we
have, in great part at least, an explanation why conversions to the Catholic
Church are not more frequent than they are. Surely the Catholic Church is
prominent enough in the eyes of men. From her church towers she cries aloud.
In the streets at the opening of her gates, she utters her word, saying: “O
children of men, how long will you love folly, and the unwise hate knowledge?
Turn ye at my reproof.”
B
Her antiquity, her unity, her universality, the sanctity of so many of her children, are enough to arrest the attention of every thoughtful man. But how few heed her voice! True, here and there, there are souls who recognize in her the true teacher sent by Christ, the guide of their souls, and submit themselves to her safe and holy keeping.
C
Altogether, they make a goodly company; but how small in proportion to those who are left behind! It reminds us of the words of the prophet: “I will take one of a city, and two of a family and bring you into Zion.” (Jeremiah 3:14) They come by ones and twos, and the mass remains behind. And what does that mass think of the Catholic Church?
D
Some are entirely ignorant of her, almost as though she did not exist. Some have wrong ideas about her, and hate her. Some know a good deal about her doctrines, and are conversant with the proofs of them, and argue about them, and criticize them. Some are favorably inclined to her. Some patronize her.
E
It was just so with Christ. To some He was simply unknown, though He was in their midst. To some He was an impostor and a blasphemer. To many He was an occasion of dispute, some affirming Him to be a “good man,” others saying, “Nay, He deceives the people.” To some He was an innovator on the established religion, the religion of the respectable and educated. To others, His mysteries were an offence, and the severity of His doctrine a stumbling-block.
F
Why is this? Why is it always thus? Why are men so slow to be wise, and to be happy? I do not wish, my brethren, to give too sweeping an answer. I know there is such a thing as inculpable ignorance. I believe there are many on their way to the Church who are not suspected of it, and who, perhaps, do not suspect it themselves.
G
I know that God has His seasons of grace and providence. I know that each human mind is different from every other, and has its own law of working, its own way of arriving at conviction. But after all such deductions, are there not very many of whom it is a plain matter of fact to say that they will not give their attention to this subject? They may even have conscious doubts on their minds, and live and die with those unattended to, unresolved.
H
It is a want of religious earnestness. Men do not ask: “What shall I do to be saved?” Or at least, they do not give to that question their supreme attention. They do not grasp with their destiny. They are indifferent to it, or hopeless about its solution. They let themselves float on, leaving the questions of the future to decide themselves as they may, and live in the pleasures and interest of the present.
IX
A
Oh fatal lethargy! Unworthy a rational being, defeating the end of our creation, and entailing countless miseries here and hereafter. Nothing can be hoped for from the world, till it awakes from its lethargy of indifference. Men must be men before you can make them Christians – serious, thoughtful earnest men, before you have any reason for expecting them to become Catholics.
B
There is more hope of a conscientious bigot, than for a man indifferent to his salvation. He, at least, is in earnest. If his mind should become enlightened, if he should recognize the Catholic Church as the divinely-appointed guide to that heaven which he is seeking, there is reason to hope that he will avail himself of her blessings.
C
He will not make frivolous objections; he will not stumble at the Sacrament of Confession, or catch at every scandalous story of immorality on the part of a Catholic, or quarrel with every minute ritual arrangement; but in a better, higher, nobler spirit, in that spirit of obedience which so well becomes a man, in that spirit of faith, in which man’s reason asserts most clearly its high character, by uniting itself to and embracing the Reason of God, when he finds that the Church is the guide to his immortal destiny, he “will come bending to her, and will worship the steps of her feet, and will call her the City of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel.”
X
A
And now,
to turn our eyes within the Church, we can in the same way account for those
dreadful apostasies from the Catholic faith which are here and there recorded in
history. Mohammedanism, which in numbers is a rival to Catholicity, possesses
some of fairest lands once owned by Christ. In modern times, one of the most
refined and enlightened nations of Christendom, in a moment of frenzy, threw off
the faith with which her history had been so adorned, and professed Atheism.
B
Now, how did these things happen? Not of a sudden, or all at once. Men are not changed from Christians into Turks or Infidels in an hour. There must have been some secret moral history, which accounts for this wonderful change. And so there was. Men became lax in their conduct. The Catholicity they practiced was not the Catholicity of Christ and the Apostles. Public morals were conformed to the standard of heathenism rather than that of the Gospel – nay, sometimes outraged as much the decencies of heathenism as the precepts of Christ.
C
It was the old story. St. John the Baptist imprisoned by an adulterous king; St. John the Baptist, conspired against and murdered by an ambitious queen; the head of St. John the Baptist, eloquent and reproachful even in death, brought in to point the jest and stimulate the revelry of a lascivious feast – this is but a figure of the treatment which conscience has received in Christian courts, and at the hands of Christian princes.
D
Morality and decency grew out of date, and were cast aside like old-fashioned garments, and the restraints of the Law of God were as feeble as cobwebs before the power of passion. Now, what else could be the result of all this, but a disesteem of Christianity itself?
E
True, it might retain some hold upon men’s minds for a time. The fact that it was the religion of their ancestors, the fact that they were baptized in it, the beauty of its ceremonies and architecture, the soothing influence of its ordinances, the services it has rendered to civilization, might keep it standing in its place for a time; but these considerations are not strong enough to withstand the power of hell, when it is exerted in the way of persecution, or a general apostasy. “Every plant that my Heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up,” said Christ. (Matthew 15:13)
F
It must be a supernatural motive that binds us to our faith. Christ and the Law cannot long remain divorced. A people without conscience will soon be a people without faith; and a nation of triflers only waits the occasion, to become a nation of apostates.
XI
A
It is not, then, without a special providence of God, that in these later days the missionary orders of the Church have been multiplied. In the sixteenth century the intellectual defense of the faith was the Church’s greatest need, and that was most successfully accomplished. But there is needed something more to uphold the falling fabric of modern society. Men need to be reminded of the first principles of morality. And, therefore, a St. Alphonsus appears in Naples, a St. Vincent of Paul in France; missionary orders in every land go about teaching the people, before it is too late, the very first and fundamental truths – the doctrine of repentance and good works.
B
Here, in every age, and every country, is the real danger to faith. We speak often of the dangers to faith in this country; and unquestionably we have our special trials here. Some of our children are lost by neglect. Some grow cold in the unfriendly atmosphere that surrounds them. But the real danger to be dreaded is, that the love of the Church herself should grow cold; that a wide-spread demoralization should take place among ourselves; that we should forget the keeping of the Ten Commandments.
C
This, indeed, would be the prelude to our destruction. Practical morality makes a strong Church; but let morality be forgotten, and the Church, while it has a name to live, is dead. And as a corpse long decomposed sometimes retains the human form until it is exposed to the air, when it crumbles into dust; so a dead Church will be blown to atoms and swept away, by the first strong blast that hell breathes against it.
XII
A
And, in
fine, by the light of the thought which I have been endeavoring to present to
you this morning, we see the means by which we ought to make sure our personal
union with Christ. Christ is coming. He is coming at Christmas to unite
Himself with those whom He shall find prepared. He is coming again, and the
mountains shall melt before Him; for He is coming to judge the world. “Who
shall stand to see Him? For He shall be as a Refining Fire, and shall try the
Sons of Levi as gold and silver.” (Malachi 3:2-3)
B
How shall we abide His coming, my brethren! How shall we prepare to meet Him? I know no other way than that which St. John the Baptist recommended to the Jews – a true and solid conversion. Whether a man has committed mortal sin or not, whether he is born a Catholic or not, there comes upon him, if he is a true Christian, some time in his life, a change which Catholic writers call conversion.
C
It may not be sudden. It may be all but imperceptible. It may be more than once. But at least once, there comes a time when religion becomes a matter of personal conviction with him. He is different from what he was before. A change has passed over him. He has awakened to his moral accountability. His manhood is developed. His conscience is aroused. And until that happens, you cannot count on him.
D
He may seem innocent and pious, but you cannot tell whether it will not be “like the dew that passes away in the morning.” You cannot say how he will act in temptation. You cannot reckon on what he will be next year. Perhaps then he will draw sin “as with a cart-rope.”
E
The trouble with such men is not that they sin sometimes. Alas! Such is human frailty that a single fall would not dishearten us; but the real misery is, that they have no principle of not sinning. They are not preparing for Christ’s judgment. Their contrition, such as it is, is intended to prepare them for confession, not for eternity. See, then, what we want!
XIII
A
And this
is what I understand by the penance which St. John The Baptist preached.
He practiced it himself. It is thought that in St. John’s case the use of
reason was granted before birth; and when as a babe he leaped in his mother’s
womb, it was for conscious joy at the presence of his Lord and Savior. And
since the Blessed Virgin and St. Elizabeth knew each other as children. It
is more than probable that they used to play together when they were boys, as
the painters loved to represent them.
B
And oh! what an effect did the knowledge of Christ have on St. John! It took the color out of earthly beauty, and the music out of earthly joy. There was with him afterward one overpowering desire – the desire of sanctity. He has seen a vision of heaven. Not because he despised the world, but because a higher beauty was opened to his soul, he went into the desert, and his meat was locusts and wild honey. One aim he had: to purify his heart. One thought: to prepare for heaven, and to help others also to prepare.
XIV
A
Oh, let us
heed his words and example. Let us follow him, if not in the rigor of his
fasts, at least in the sincerity of his penance. Be converted, and turn to the
Lord your God. There is no other way of preparing for judgment. Remember what
the Church says to you at the Font: “if thou wilt enter into life, keep the
commandments,” Listen to what God Himself counsels, when prophesying the
terrors of the last day: “Remember the law of Moses, My servant, which I
commanded him on Mt. Horeb for all Israel, the precepts and judgments.”
(Malachi 4:4)
B
The law commanded on Mt. Horeb – that eternal law of right, and justice, and purity, and truth – examine yourself by this standard; forsake every evil way and live a Christian life. Happy are they who do so! Happy and secure shall they be in the evil time. When the earth and heaven shall be shaken, and sea and land give up their dead, and the Son of Man appear in the heavens, and the Throne shall be set for judgment, then look up and lift up your head, for your redemption draws near.
C
You have been true to your conscience; you have believed in Christ; you have kept His law; now to you belongs the promise, “Then they that feared the Lord spoke every man with his neighbor, and the Lord gave ear, and heard it: and a book of remembrance was written before the Lord for them that fear the Lord, and think on His Name. And they shall be My special possession, says the Lord of Hosts, in the day that I do judgment: and I will spare them as a man spares his own son that serves him.” (Malachi 3:16-17)