LOCUSTS & WILD HONEY – ST JOHN THE BAPTIST’S DAY, JUNE 24 TH
t John the Baptist is the only Saint whose birthday the Church
celebrates, apart from Jesus and Mary. This Saints Day is a wild
mixture of traditions: Celtic, Slav, Germanic and Christian. The
heathens celebrated the shortest night of the year with large fires to mark the
solstice. In the night when the god Wotan walked the earth to bless it, the
people jumped over the fires in the belief, that the gods should free them
from misfortune and illness. Already in the 5 th century Christians picked up
these traditions, in order to celebrate that ‘figure of light’ which pointed to the
‘new light of the world’ in Jesus.
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St John’s Day sometimes was called ‘Summer Christmas’, following a circle
of numbers which divided the year in 4 quarters, the birthday of John
corresponding to that of Jesus.
St Luke tells us that Elizabeth, the mother of John expected a child in old age
as the angel had foretold, Mary went to see her, and as they met, the child in
Elizabeth’s womb leapt. This is why St John later on became the patron saint
of dancers and musicians. This antenatal dance might have been the only
one, which John ever dared to do, we are told that he lived a very ascetic life,
eating only locusts and wild honey, wore a hairy garment and never drank
any wine. For that reason popular piety later called on him to help in cases of
alcoholism, also epilepsy and spasms of different kinds. John was the great
preacher of repentance, who warned of eternal fire for sinners. When John
criticised the king Herod Antipas for his marriage, he was imprisoned and
beheaded. Therefore he also is a Saint called upon in cases of strong
headaches.
Jesus must have started his preaching life in the footsteps of John, as a
prophet of Doom, with similar burning eyes threatening disaster.
Why only have the prophets of Doom so little success in this world? They
obviously are right, since they have looked into the abyss, they see what
others do not want to see. It might be that pure fright does not lead to
conversion.
The late Brazilian Bishop Helder Camara once wrote: “Lord, teach me to say
‘no’ with a hint of ‘yes’. The prophetic ‘no’ only makes people more stubborn.
Jesus later found a way out of that prophetic ‘no’, he seems to playfully draw
in the sand when the people brought the adulteress before him, he shows
them the more beautiful way of forgiving, he eats and drinks with the tax
collectors and sinners, and with every drink they become more human.
None is spared repentance, but they are not driven to despair, they learn to
be accepted, they learn to live a better live.
StOM Page 9