Prayer of the Day

Fourth Week of Easter – Feast of St. Pius V, Pope

John the Baptist’s vocation was to point out the Saviour: this vocation must be relived by each of us. John was very different from other leaders of his day. He was concerned only with the praise of God. He lived differently from other people to show that his message was new. He not only preached God’s law – he lived it. He practised what he preached. We could ask ourselves the question: Could people discover what we believe by observing the way we live? Many people came to listen to John to hear this preacher who wore odd clothes and ate unusual food – ‘locusts and wild honey’!

Jesus paid this powerful tribute to John: “Among those born of women, there is no greater than John the Baptist.” Yet, John’s greatness lies also in the fact that he realised it was time for him to leave the stage and hand the mission over to Jesus to bring it to fulfilment.