Today is the feast of St. John the Baptist. We read in the
first reading, Isaiah 49: 1-6, that God created John the Baptist, and all of
us, in order that God’s glory would shine through us. From the beginning of our conception, through
birth and until death, God is at work in us, making us “a light” to others, an instrument in God’s hands whereby
God’s “salvation reach[es] to the ends of the earth”. We are, the prophet Isaiah tells us, “made glorious in the sight of the
Lord”. By Jesus’ becoming sin for us and destroying sin’s power
by his death and resurrection, we are made glorious in the sight of the Lord.
Like King David, “a man after…[God’s] own heart,” (Acts
13:22), we, too, are being transformed
day by day into a person after God’s own heart.” That is the free gift of
redemption. John is the one who calls us
to repentance in order that we will be prepared for this God-gift, a gift of
love and forgiveness. Like John, we are growing and becoming “strong
in spirit” (cf. Luke 1: 57-66, 80) as we traverse the desert earth until the “day
of [God’s] manifestation” to us. That
manifestation comes to us through the Scriptures, the Eucharist, the sacrament
of reconciliation, and the God revelations in the events and encounters of each
day to those who live by faith and not by sight.
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