June 24 2019

Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist - Vigil

Reading 1 Jer 1:4-10

In the days of King Josiah, the word of the LORD came to me, saying:

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I dedicated you,
a prophet to the nations I appointed you.

"Ah, Lord GOD!" I said,
"I know not how to speak; I am too young."
But the LORD answered me,
Say not, "I am too young."
To whomever I send you, you shall go;
whatever I command you, you shall speak.
Have no fear before them,
because I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD.

Then the LORD extended his hand and touched my mouth, saying,

See, I place my words in your mouth!
This day I set you
over nations and over kingdoms,
to root up and to tear down,
to destroy and to demolish,
to build and to plant.

Responsorial Psalm Ps 71:1-2, 3-4a, 5-6ab, 15ab and 17

R. (6) Since my mother's womb, you have been my strength.
In you, O LORD, I take refuge;
let me never be put to shame.
In your justice rescue me, and deliver me;
incline your ear to me, and save me.
R. Since my mother's womb, you have been my strength.
Be my rock of refuge,
a stronghold to give me safety,
for you are my rock and my fortress.
O my God, rescue me from the hand of the wicked.
R. Since my mother's womb, you have been my strength.
For you are my hope, O LORD;
my trust, O LORD, from my youth.
On you I depend from birth;
from my mother's womb you are my strength.
R. Since my mother's womb, you have been my strength.
My mouth shall declare your justice,
day by day your salvation.
O God, you have taught me from my youth,
and till the present I proclaim your wondrous deeds.
R. Since my mother's womb, you have been my strength.

Reading 2 1 Pt 1:8-12

Beloved:
Although you have not seen Jesus Christ you love him;
even though you do not see him now yet believe in him,
you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy,
as you attain the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Concerning this salvation,
prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours
searched and investigated it,
investigating the time and circumstances
that the Spirit of Christ within them indicated
when he testified in advance
to the sufferings destined for Christ
and the glories to follow them.
It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you
with regard to the things that have now been announced to you
by those who preached the Good News to you
through the Holy Spirit sent from heaven,
things into which angels longed to look.

Alleluia See Jn 1:7, LK 1:17

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
He came to testify to the light,
to prepare a people fit for the Lord.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel Lk 1:5-17

In the days of Herod, King of Judea,
there was a priest named Zechariah
of the priestly division of Abijah;
his wife was from the daughters of Aaron,
and her name was Elizabeth.
Both were righteous in the eyes of God,
observing all the commandments
and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly.
But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren
and both were advanced in years.
Once when he was serving
as priest in his division's turn before God,
according to the practice of the priestly service,
he was chosen by lot
to enter the sanctuary of the Lord to burn incense.
Then, when the whole assembly of the people was praying outside
at the hour of the incense offering,
the angel of the Lord appeared to him,
standing at the right of the altar of incense.
Zechariah was troubled by what he saw, and fear came upon him.
But the angel said to him, "Do not be afraid, Zechariah,
because your prayer has been heard.
Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son,
and you shall name him John.
And you will have joy and gladness,
and many will rejoice at his birth,
for he will be great in the sight of the Lord.
John will drink neither wine nor strong drink.
He will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb,
and he will turn many of the children of Israel
to the Lord their God.
He will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah
to turn their hearts toward their children
and the disobedient to the understanding of the righteous,
to prepare a people fit for the Lord."

From: Acts 13:22-26

Preaching in the Synagogue of Antioch of Pisidia

[In those days, Paul said:] [22] And when He had removed him, He raised up Da-
vid to be their king; of whom He testified and said, “I have found in David the son
of Jesse a man after My heart, who will do all My will.’ [23] Of this man’s posterity
God has brought Israel a Savior, Jesus, as He promised. [24] Before His coming
John had preached a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. [25] And
as John was finishing his course, he said, ‘What do you suppose that I am? I am
not He. No, but after me One is coming, the sandals of whose feet I am not wor-
thy to untie.’” [26] “Brethren, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among
you that fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation.

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Commentary:

16-41. Paul’s address here is an excellent example of the way he used to present
the Gospel to a mixed congregation of Jews and proselytes. He lists the benefits
conferred by God on the chosen people from Abraham down to John the Baptism
(verses 16-25); he then shows how all the messianic prophecies were fulfilled in
Jesus (verses 26-37), and, by way of conclusion, states that justification comes
about through faith in Jesus, who died and then rose from the dead (verse 38-41).

This address contains all the main themes of apostolic preaching, that is, God’s
saving initiative in the history of Israel (verses 17-22); reference to the Precursor
(verses 24-25); the proclamation of the Gospel or “kerygma” in the proper sense
(verses 26b-31a); mention of Jerusalem (verse 31b); arguments from Sacred
Scripture (verses 33-37), complementing apostolic teaching and tradition (verses
38-39); and a final exhortation, eschatological in character, announcing the future
(verses 40-41). In many respects this address is like those of St. Peter (cf. 2:14ff;
3:12ff), especially where it proclaims Jesus as Messiah and in its many quota-
tions from Sacred Scripture, chosen to show that the decisive event of the Resur-
rection confirms Christ’s divinity.

Paul gives a general outline of salvation history and then locates Jesus in it as
the expected Messiah, the point at which all the various strands in that history
meet and all God’s promises are fulfilled. He shows that all the steps which lead
up to Jesus Christ, even the stage of John the Baptist, are just points on a route.
Earlier, provisional elements must now, in Christ, give way to a new, definitive
situation.

“You that fear God” (v. 26): see the notes on Acts 2:5-11 and 10:2.

*********************************************************************************************
Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

Solemnity: Birth of St John the Baptist (Vigil)
From: Jeremiah 1:4-10
The Lord calls Jeremiah

[4] Now the word of the Lord came to me saying,
[5] “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
[6] Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am
only a youth.” [7] But the Lord said to me,
“Do not say, I am only a youth’;
for to all to whom I send you you shall go,
and whatever I command you you shall speak.
[8] Be not afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you.
[9] Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord
said to me,
“Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.
[10] See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to break down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build up and to plant.”

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Commentary:
1:1-19. The book of Jeremiah is a collection of the prophet’s oracles arranged
more by subject than in chronological order and interspersed with stories about
his life. The heading (vv. 1-3), as in most of the prophetical books, introduces the
prophet and tells when he lived. Then, as an introduction to the book, comes an
account of the call of Jeremiah (vv. 4-10) along with two visions that give a good
description of the man (vv. 11-12 and 13-19).
1:4-10. This account of the call of Jeremiah gives a very good idea of the myste-
rious nature of every divine call â€“ a call from all eternity and involving no merit on
the part of the person called, in which God makes known to a soul the why and
wherefore of his or her life. No one comes into being by accident, for everything
that happens is part of God’s providence (v. 5). God’s action in creating a person
is described graphically â€“ “formed” you in the womb â€“ a word used to describe
what a potter does when he models something in clay. The Lord “knew” Jere-
miah—a reference to his choosing him for a specific mission (cf. Amos 3:2; Rom
8:29); God has a plan for each person, and he endows each with talents that
equip him or her to put that plan into effect. The passage also talks of a “conse-
cration”, that is, the earmarking of a person or thing for the service of God. God’s
plan for someone, made before the person is born, emerges in due course, when
he or she is old enough to take on the assignments that God has been preparing
him for. Glossing this passage, St John Chrysostom, has God say this: “I am
the one who knit you together in your mother’s womb. Your life is not a work of
nature, nor the fruit of suffering. I am the origin and cause of all things: you should
obey and offer yourself to me,” and he adds: “It does not begin with I consecrated
you: first, I knew you; then I consecrated you. Thus is the original choice shown,
and after the original choice, the particular calling” (Fragmenta in Ieremiam, 1).
When the mystery of a person’s calling begins to be revealed, their initial reac-
tion can be one of fear, because they are very conscious of their limitations and
feel that they are not up to the tasks that the Lord entrusts them with. Jeremiah,
for example, argues that he is too young (v. 6). We do not know how old he was
at the time, for the word he uses to describe his age (na’ar) is imprecise. He
was probably only an adolescent (cf. Gen 37:2; 1 Sam 2:18; 3:1-21). In respon-
ding to a vocation, one needs to listen, above all, to God who calls, who never
leaves his chosen ones on their own, and who always gives them the wherewi-
thal to carry out the mission he is charging them with (vv. 7-8).
The Lord’s symbolic gesture of putting out his hand to touch Jeremiah’s mouth,
as if to fill it with divine words, is similar to other gestures found in accounts of
the calling of prophets (cf. Is 6:7; Ezek 2:8-3:3; Dan 10:16). It is to tell the man
not to be concerned: he can rest assured that God will give him the right words
to express himself. It is a promise similar to that made by Jesus to his disci-
ples: he assured them of the Holy Spirit’s help when the time came for them to
bear witness to him (cf. Mt 10:19-20).
The assignment given to Jeremiah implies a heavy responsibility; he will need
fortitude if he is to carry it out (v. 10). It involves in the first place doing destruc-
tive things (plucking up, breaking down, destroying and overthrowing) and only
then come constructive roles (building and planning). St Gregory the Great will
apply the same idea to the attention that is called for in the pastoral care of the
faithful: “One cannot build up if what disturbs the foundation has not been des-
troyed. In other words, the sweet words of good preaching are sown in vain if
the thorns of self-love have not first been plucked from the hearts of listeners”
(Regular pastoralis, 3, 34).
*********************************************************************************************
Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

From: Isaiah 49:1-6
Second Song of the Servant of the Lord

[1] Listen to me, O coastlands,
and hearken, you peoples from afar.
The LORD called me from the womb,
from the body of my mother he named my name.
[2] He made my mouth like a sharp sword,
in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me a polished arrow,
in his quiver he hid me away.
[3] And he said to me, You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
[4] But I said, “I have labored in vain,
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my right is with the LORD,
and my recompense with my God.”
[5] And now the LORD says,
who formed me from the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him,
and that Israel might be gathered to him,
for I am honored in the eyes of the LORD,
and my God has become my strength —
[6] he says:
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to restore the preserved of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

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Commentary:
49:1-55:13. Chapter 49 marks the start of the second section of the second part
of Isaiah. The first section (40:1-48:22) dealt with the release of the Jews from
exile in Babylon on the orders of the Lord, the ruler of the world and of all nations.
This second section sings of the restoration of Zion and the renewal of the peo-
ple.
Almost all the oracles here presuppose that Babylon has fallen and the exiles
have returned home (although neither event is explicitly referred to). Nor is there
mention of the universal scope of salvation: the focus is mainly on future hopes
and on Jerusalem.
Most of the oracles in this section were probably proclaimed, between the years
515 and 500 BC. If that was the case, then they were addressed to a disillusioned
people: the enthusiasm that came with the return from exile and the efforts made
to rebuild Jerusalem failed to produce the desired results: there are still class dif-
ferences, greed is plain to see, and huge sectors of society are experiencing po-
verty. The kind of Jerusalem that the exiles dreamed of had not come about: it
bore no relationship to what they were experiencing; nor did it fit the image of Je-
rusalem found in many texts of the Priestly tradition (cf. “Introduction to the Pen-
tateuch”, in “The Navarre Bible: Pentateuch” (p. 20). These oracles are designed
to dispel discouragement and to raise people’s hopes by telling them about the
liberator that God is going to send, the servant of the Lord, and by proclaiming
that the holy city (now given the sacred name of Zion) will very soon be restored.
In fact, the section can be divided into alternating poems on the servant and on
Zion: 49:1-13, the “servant” (second oracle); 49:14-50:3, “Zion”; 50:4-11, the “ser-
vant”, (third oracle and exhortation); 51:17-52:12, Zion; 52:13-53:12, the “servant”
(fourth oracle); 54:1-17, “Zion” (Jerusalem). Verses 1-13 of chapter 5
49:1-6. In the first Song of the Servant of the Lord (42:1-9) we meet the “servant”
for the first time and we are told of his mission to liberate the exiles. In this se-
cond song, the servant himself speaks. He addresses the “coastlands”, “peo-
ples from afar”, and he is conscious of having been chosen by God from his mo-
ther’s womb to carry out God’s plans of salvation even in those distant parts (cf.
vv. 1-3). Here we are told about two aspects of his mission, which we will hear
more about in the oracles that follow. First, he is to play a leading role in the re-
covery of the tribes and the repatriation of the exiles (v. 5); second, he will ex-
tend salvation to the ends of the earth (cf. v. 6).
This poem contains things that the servant has to say about himself (vv. 1-4),
and things that God says about the servant (vv. 5-6). The servant is well aware
that he was called by God, even from his mother’s womb, (like Jeremiah; cf. Jer
1:5) and has been charged with preaching to the pagan peoples (”the coast-
lands”) or at least to his compatriots in the diaspora (cf. v. 1; cf. Jer 1:1-10; 25:
13-38); he has been endowed with qualities that enable him to speak out, with
words that find their mark like arrows, even if that creates divisions (v. 2; cf. Jer
1:10); and also, despite the divine protection given him, he feels depressed and
disappointed, as happened to Jeremiah (vv. 3-4; cf. Jer 1:7; :8:18-20). Everything
that the servant does is grounded on what the Lord has told him: “You are my
servant, Israel” (v. 3). Some commentators are of the view that “Israel” here is a
later interpretation, put in to support the collectivist interpretation of the servant
that soon became widespread; but there is little evidence to support that: the
word “Israel” is missing only in one manuscript, and not an important one at that.
The mention of Israel does not argue against the servant’s being an individual ra-
ther than a collectivity, for in poetry a person can be addressed by his own name
or by his family name. In fact, both in biblical Israel and nowadays we often find
people using their place of birth as a surname.
In vv. 5-6 the Lord spells out the servant’s mission: it is to renew the people in
such a way that even non-Israelites can see the light and attain salvation. Al-
though the universal mission of the servant is not clearly defined here, for his
work is meant to be confined to the tribes of Jacob, still the achievement of this
objective (the re-assembling of Israel) will be a kind of light to help the pagan
nations see and acknowledge God. The expression “light to the nations”. (v. 6)
already occurred in the earlier poem (42:6); there it could be taken in a social
sense — to bring about the liberation of the exiles and captives; here, the reli-
gious meaning is clear: salvation will spread to all the nations.
To sum up, the servant of the Lord (be he an individual or a collectivity, or more
likely both) has been chosen by God, who loves him most specially; he has all
the main qualities of a prophet; and he must influence his compatriots so as to
enlighten those from outside, and bring them salvation.
The messianic interpretation of the servant figure, based on this second song,
was widespread among the Jews of Alexandria who made the Septuagint Greek
translation; it was also held by members of the Qumran community and by
some authors of the period between the Old and New Testaments (the author of
the “Book of Enoch”, for example). All these interpreted the servant as standing
for the entire people of Israel. Christians, from the beginning, applied the songs
of the servant to Jesus, and saw them as finding fulfillment in his life. Thus, al-
though the image of the “sharp sword” (v. 2) refers to the effectiveness of the
word of God, in Hebrews 4:12-13 we find it used with reference to Revelation as
a whole which is fully and perfectly manifested in Jesus Christ (cf. also Rev 1:16
and 2:12). We find the expression, “light to the nations” or “light to the peoples”
being applied by Simeon to Jesus (Lk 2:32). Indeed, in the Acts of the Apostles
it is applied to those who, in line with Jesus’ teaching and as cooperators in his
work of salvation, are setting out to preach to the Gentiles, as the words Paul
and Barnabas speak in the synagogue of Psidian Antioch testify: “It was neces-
sary that the word of God should be spoken first to you. Since you thrust it from
you, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles.
For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, ‘I have set you to be a light for the
Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the uttermost parts of the earth” (Acts
13:46-47).
Hence the Church sees her mission as spreading the truth about Jesus, the light
that enlightens everyone: “The light, of God’s face shines in all its beauty on the
countenance of Jesus Christ, ‘the image of the invisible God’ (Col 1:15), the ‘re-
flection of God’s glory’ (Heb 1:3), ‘full of grace and truth’ (Jn 1:14). Christ is ‘the
way, and the truth, and the life’ (Jn 14:6). [...] Jesus Christ, the ‘light of the na-
tions’, shines: upon the face of his Church, which he sends forth to the whole
world to proclaim the Gospel to every creature (cf. Mk 16:15). Hence the Church,
as the people of God among the nations, while attentive to the new challenges of
history and to mankind’s efforts to discover the meaning of life, offers to everyone
the answer which comes from the truth about Jesus Christ and his Gospel” (St.
John Paul II, “Veritatis Splendor”, 2).
*********************************************************************************************
Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

Scripture readings from the Jerusalem Bible by Darton, Longman & Todd

Readings at Mass

Liturgical Colour: White.

These readings are for the Vigil Mass on the evening before the feast:

First reading	Jeremiah 1:4-10 ©

Go and say whatever I command you and do not fear

The word of the Lord was addressed to me, saying,

‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you;

before you came to birth I consecrated you;

I have appointed you as prophet to the nations.’

I said, ‘Ah, Lord; look, I do not know how to speak: I am a child!’

But the Lord replied,

‘Do not say, “I am a child.”

Go now to those to whom I send you

and, say whatever I command you.

Do not be afraid of them,

for I am with you to protect you –

it is the Lord who speaks!’

Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me:

‘There! I am putting my words into your mouth.

Look, today I am setting you

over nations and over kingdoms,

to tear up and to knock down,

to destroy and to overthrow,

to build and to plant.’

Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 70(71):1-6,15,17 ©