for August 29
Memorial of the Passion of Saint John the Baptist

In today’s first reading Paul is telling the Corinthians, or better reminding them, that not many were powerful people or of noble birth. This implies that some were such, and it could also allude to the discrimination against the poorer church members that Paul criticizes later in the letter. For Paul this is part of God’s plan to choose the foolish and the weak to shame the so-called wise and strong. Then Paul continues more sharply that God chooses the lowly and despised, hardly the way the Corinthians thought of themselves. Pre-eminently, this can be seen in the paradox of Christ’s ignominious death on the cross resulting in the salvation of the world.

This divine initiative is so that no human might boast before God, as they and others and even perhaps sometimes we ourselves like to do. Paul’s conclusion is that Christ is our everything—wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption—and thus quoting Jeremiah we only should boast in the Lord. As the psalm refrain says, we ought to be grateful that the Lord has blessed us as the people the Lord has chosen to be the Lord’s own.

Since the church today commemorates the martyrdom of John the Baptist, the gospel recalls that tragedy which one author describes as “the drunken oath of a king with a shallow sense of honor, a seductive dance, and the hateful heart of a queen.” John had been arrested and imprisoned by Herod Antipas, not Herod the so-called Great who was king when Jesus was born but his son who was technically only the tetrarch of Galilee. He had criticized Herod for marrying Herodias his brother’s wife which enraged her, so she wanted him killed. Herod knew John to be a holy man and liked to listen to him but was perplexed by him and even feared him.

At a big birthday banquet with probably a lot of drinking, the daughter of Herodias performed a dance which delighted everyone. This prompted Herod to swear to offer her whatever she wanted, even half his kingdom, which of course as a vassal of Rome he had no authority to divide. Thus Herodias was enabled to have her daughter request the death of the Baptist. Distressed as he was, because of his oath and the guests who heard it, he promptly had John beheaded in prison, though his disciples were able to retrieve his body.

Here is what the 8^th century Saint Bede the Venerable, an English theologian and doctor of the church preached on this feast:

John preached the freedom of heavenly peace, yet was thrown into irons by ungodly men; he was locked away in the darkness of prison, though he came bearing witness to the Light of life and deserved to be called a bright and shining lamp by the Light itself, which is Christ. John was baptized in his own blood, though he had been privileged to baptize the Redeemer of the world, to hear the voice of the Father above him, and to see the grace of the Holy Spirit descending upon him.

—Edward O’Donnell SJ

Today’s readings can be found on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website.