HERALDS OF THE LORD.

SOLEMNITY OF THE NATIVITY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST.
(First reading: Isaiah 49:1-6) (Second reading: Acts 13:22-26)
(Gospel: Luke 1:57-66, 80)
June 24, 2007.

HERALDS OF THE LORD.

From the moment of conception in the maternal womb every individual is a herald of the Lord to the world. From our mother's womb our name is: "Children of the Most High"; we are his likeness and image.

We are heralds because, like John the Baptist, our purpose in life is to announce the Lord, to proclaim with our life that God is among us, to give witness of the Lord's presence in our world.

Why are we heralds?
Because the Lord needs every human being as much as he needed John the Baptist to prepare the way, to straighten the twisted paths of the world.
Therefore, our work for the Lord is not so much an act of our own volition as a compliance with the will of God who tells us that he needs us to be his heralds, his voice, his image.

How do the Children of God proclaim the Lord?
By bring to the world the life of God, that is to say, peace, justice, concern for one another, self-giving, compassion, mutual respect, equality, unity. These elements of God's life are precisely the opposite of what the world fosters, i.e. war, destruction, egotism, oppression, discrimination, division, injustice.

In view of this radical opposition between the world and God, the world has no other recourse but to destroy the heralds of the Lord, the Children of God even before birth as well as after birth.

The family of John the Baptist like the family of Jesus himself show us that the protection of the life of the unborn child and of all human beings is not so much in the hands of the State as in the hands of the family. Each member of the family must become a true herald of God by protecting human life.

The gospel shows us that John's family and John himself are the models of how families and the individuals within the family are to become heralds of the Lord.