On the [Commemorated] Feast of the Decollation (Beheading) of Saint John the Baptist

Today is the commemorated feast of the Decollation (Beheading) of Saint John the Baptist, the event of which is recorded in the Gospel passage that was read at the end of Holy Mass today:

At that time, Herod had sent and taken John, and bound him in prison, because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, whom he had married. For John had said to Herod, It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife. But Herodias laid snares for him, and would have liked to put him to death, but she could not. For Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just and holy man, and protected him; and when he heard him talk, he did any things, and he liked to hear him. And a favorable day came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet to the officials, tribunes and chief men of Galilee. And Herodias’ own daughter having come in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests. And the king said to the girl, Ask of me what you will, and I will give it to you. And he swore to her, Whatever you ask, I will give you, even though it be the half of my kingdom. Then she went out and said to her mother, What am I to ask for? And she said, The head of John the Baptist. And she came in at once with haste to the king, and asked, saying, I want you right away to give me on a dish the head of John the Baptist. And grieved as he was, the king because of his oath and his guests, was unwilling to displease her. But sending an executioner, he commanded that his head be brought on a dish. Then he beheaded him in the prison, and brought his head on a dish, and gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother. His disciples, hearing of it, came and took away his body, and laid it in a tomb. (Mark 6: 17-19.)

As we know, Jorge Mario Bergoglio does not believe that sinners who are engaged in what he calls disparagingly as “below the belt” problems need to be rebuked. Bergoglio is an enabler of these sinners—neigh well an accessory to their sins—in the name of “accompaniment.”

There are prayers found in The Raccolta in honor of Saint John the Baptist, the last of the Old Testament Prophets, that can be read at any time but most especially on the feast of his nativity, June 24, and on this day. Readers will see that these beautiful prayers explain the holy mission of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour’s Precursor and Cousin and explain everything that Jorge Mario Bergoglio, an Anti-Saint John the Baptist, would have "accompanied" Herod the Tetrarch and Herodias rather to have denounced them as had Saint John the Baptist.

The prayers, which are found in the 1957 English translation of the May 30, 1951, editio typica of the Latin original of The Raccolta truly speak for themselves, showing Jorge Mario Bergoglio to have none of the holy zeal for penance and thus for the salvation of souls as did Saint John the Baptist:

I. O glorious Saint John the Baptist, greatest prophet among those born of woman (Luke 7, 28), although thou wast sanctified in thy mother's womb and didst lead a most innocent life, nevertheless it was thy will to retire into the wilderness, there to devote thyself to the practice of austerity and penance; obtain for us of thy Lord the grace to be wholly detached, at least in our hearts, from earthly goods, and to practice Christian mortification with interior recollection and with the spirit of holy prayer.

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, etc.

II. O most zealous Apostle, who, without working any miracle on others, but solely by the example of thy life of penance and the power of thy word, didst draw after thee the multitudes, in order to dispose them to receive the Messias worthily and to listen to His heavenly doctrine; grant that it may be given unto us, by means of the example of a holy life and the exercise of every good work, to bring many souls to God, but above all those souls that are enveloped in the darkness of error and ignorance and are led astray by vice. (The Raccolta: A Manual of Indulgences, Prayers and Devotions Enriched with Indulgences, approved by Pope Pius XII, May 30, 1951, and published in English by Benziger Brothers, New York, 1957, pp. 345-347)

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, etc.

III. O Martyr invincible, who, for the honor of God and the salvation of souls, didst with firmness and constancy withstand the impiety of Herod even at the cost of thine own life, and didst rebuke him openly for his wicked and dissolute life; by thy prayers obtain for us a heart, brave and generous, in order that we may overcome all human respect and openly profess our faith in loyal obedience to the teachings of Jesus Christ, our Divine Master.

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, etc.

V. Pray for us, Saint John the Baptist,
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray.
O God, Who hast made this day to be honorable in our eyes by the Nativity (or commemoration) of blessed John, grant unto Thy people the grace of spiritual joy, and direct the minds of all Thy faithful into the way of everlasting salvation. Through Christ our Lord. Amen. (The Raccolta: A Manual of Indulgences, Prayers and Devotions Enriched with Indulgences, approved by Pope Pius XII, May 30, 1951, and published in English by Benziger Brothers, New York, 1957, pp. 345-347)

By the way, the prayers above were composed a pope, a true pope, a pope whose very person stands as such a rebuke to the likes of the conciliar "popes" and their "bishops" that they could not even mention the one hundredth anniversary of his death on August 20, 2014).

Yes, the prayers above were composed by Pope Saint Pius X in his own very hand. No one who is the least bit rational can claim that Jorge Mario Bergoglio stands and his false "mercy," which is the foundation of Amoris Laetitia, does not stand condemned by these prayers. He is the antithesis of the spirit of Pope Saint Pius X because he is the very personification of the spirit of Antichrist.

Indeed, as has been pointed out endless on this site, Jorge Mario Bergoglio has mocked mortification on numerous occasions in the past one hundred one months, sixteen days.

Here is one such example:

"In the history of the Church there have been some mistakes made on the path towards God. Some have believed that the Living God, the God of Christians can be found on the path of meditation, indeed that we can reach higher through meditation. That's dangerous! How many are lost on that path, never to return. Yes perhaps they arrive at knowledge of God, but not of Jesus Christ, Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity. They do not arrive at that. It is the path of the Gnostics, no? They are good, they work, but it is not the right path. It’s very complicated and does not lead to a safe harbor. "

"Others - the Pope said - thought that to arrive at God we must mortify ourselves, we have to be austere and have chosen the path of penance: only penance and fasting. Not even these arrive at the Living God, Jesus Christ. They are the pelagians, who believe that they can arrive by their own efforts.” (We encounter the Living God through His wounds.)

In other words, Saint John the Baptist did not arrive “at the Living God, Jesus Christ,” because he was a “pelagian” who believed that he could “arrive by” his own “efforts.”

Never mind the truth of the matter, namely, that Saint John the Baptist’s life of austere penance and mortification drew the multitudes to him, his preaching and his symbolic baptism of penance in order to prepare them for the Public Ministry of the One Whose sandals he was not worthy to loosen, Christ the King.

Saint John the Baptist is Holy Mother Church’s model of penance and mortification, which is one of the reasons that he is invoked in the Confiteor at Holy Mass. Jorge Mario Bergoglio has preached against penance and mortification and even meditation. How can anyone believe that this wretched little demon in human form is anything other than a perverse precursor of Antichrist himself?

Indeed, prayer, penance, fasting,and mortification are essential to growth in the interior life. Time simply does not permit a full recitation of the examples of truly heroic sanctity practiced by canonized saints as they sought to die to self on a daily basis and to be completely mortified to the world, to human respect and to sense pleasures.

Suffice it for present purposes to draw upon the following reflection, written by Father John Croiset, S.J., on Mortification:

Mortification is a necessary disposition for the true love of Jesus Christ; this was the first lesson that Jesus Christ Himself gave those who wished to be His disciples; without mortification no one can expect to be a true follower of Him. “If any man, ” says He, “will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23). And again He says: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, his mother, and wife and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). Accordingly, all the saints had this distinguishing mark of perfect mortification. When people praised the virtue of anyone in the presence of St. Ignatius, he would ask: “Is that person truly mortified?” By that he wished to intimate that true mortification is inseparable from true piety, not only because virtue cannot exist long without general and constant mortification, but also because without mortification there can be no true virtue.

There are two kinds of mortification: the one, exterior, which consists in bodily austerities; the other, interior, which consists in repressing all inordinate affections of the mind and heart. Both kinds are necessary to attain perfection, and one cannot continue to exist long without the other. Fasting, vigils, the use of the hairshirt and other such macerations of the body are powerful means to become truly spiritual and really perfect; when used with discretion, they help wonderfully to strengthen our human nature, which is cowardly when there is question of doing good, but very eager to do evil; they are of great assistance also to repel the attacks and avoid the snares of our common enemy, and to obtain from the Father of Mercies the helps necessary for the just, especially for beginners.

Sanctity, it is true, does not consist in exterior penances, and they are not incompatible with hypocrisy; it is not so with interior mortification. It is always a certain mark of true piety, and so is more necessary than exterior mortification, and no one can reasonably be dispensed from it. This is the violence which we must do to ourselves in order to possess the kingdom of Heaven. Not everyone can fast or wear a hairshirt, but there is no one who cannot be silent when passion prompts him to reply or vanity to speak; there is no one who cannot mortify his human nature, his desires, and his passions. That is what is understood by this interior mortification by which a person weakens and conquers his self-love, and by which he gets rid of his imperfections. It is idle to flatter ourselves that we love Jesus Christ if we are not mortified; all the fine sentiments of piety and the practices of devotion are suspect without perfect mortification. We are astonished to see ourselves so imperfect and to find, after so many exercises of piety and so many Holy Communions, that all our passions are still alive and continue to excite our hearts. Can we not see that want of mortification is the source of all these revolts? We must, then, if we wish to conquer this self-love by which all the passions are nourished, resolve to exercise generous and constant mortification.

It is not enough to mortify ourselves in some things, for some time; we must, as far as possible, mortify ourselves in everything and at all times, with prudence and discretion. A single unlawful gratification allowed to human nature will do more to make it proud and rebellious than a hundred victories gained over it. Truce with this sort of enemy is victory for him; “Brethren,” said Sr. Bernard, “what is cut will grow again, and what appears extinguished will light again, and what is asleep will awake again.”

To preserve the interior spirit of devotion, the soul must not be dissipated with exterior distractions, and as the prophet says, must be surrounded on all sides by a hedge of thorns. Now, if we omit to do that, it will be for us the cause of tepidity, back sliding, and want of devotion. When we mortify our disordered inclinations in one thing, we generally make up for it by some other satisfaction which we allow ourselves. During the time of retreat, we are recollected, but as soon as it is over, we open the gates of the senses to all kinds of distractions.

The exercise of this interior mortification, so common in the lives of the saints, is known by all who have a real desire to be perfect. In this matter we have only to listen to the Spirit of God. The love of Jesus Christ makes people so ingenious, that the courage and energy which they display and the means of mortifying themselves with which the Holy Spirit inspires even the most uncultured people, surpass the genius of the learned, and can be regarded as little miracles.

There is nothing which they do not make an occasion to contradict their natural inclinations; there is no time or place which does not appear proper to mortify themselves without ever going beyond the rules of good sense. It is enough that they have a great desire to see or to speak, to make them lower their eyes or keep silent; the desire to learn news, or to know what is going on, or what is being said, is for them a subject of continual mortification which is as meritorious as it is ordinary, and of which God alone is the Witness. The appropriate word, a witticism in conversation, can bring them honor, but they make it the matter of a sacrifice.

There is hardly a time of the day but gives opportunities for mortification; whether one is sitting or standing, one can find a place or an attitude that is uncomfortable without being remarked. If they are interrupted a hundred times in a serious employment, they will reply a hundred times with as much sweetness and civility as if they had not been occupied. The ill-humor of a person with whom we have to live, the imperfections of a servant, the ingratitude of a person under obligations to us, can give much exercise for the patience of a person solidly virtuous. Finally, the inconveniences of place, season or persons suffered in a manner to make people believe that we do not feel them are small occasions of mortification, it is true, but the mortification on these occasions is not small; it is of great merit.

It may be said that great graces and even sublime sanctity usually depend on the generosity with which we mortify ourselves constantly on these little occasions. Exact fulfillment of the duties of one’s state and conformity in all things to community life without regard to one’s inclinations, employment, or age involve that continual mortification which is not subject to vanity but which is in conformity with the spirit of Jesus Christ.

If occasions for exterior mortifications are wanting, those for interior mortification are ever at hand. Modesty, recollections, reserve require mortification; honesty, sweetness and civility may the the effects of education, but are more usually the result of constant mortification. Without this virtue it is difficult for a person to be always at peace, to be self-possessed, to do his actions perfectly, and be always content with what God wills. (Mortification.)

Father John Croiset was a Jesuit priest who was a faithful son of the Catholic Church.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio is not very indulgent when it comes to such old-fashioned, outdated and Pharisaical penitential practices that Paragraph Fifteen in the General Instruction to the Roman Missal tells us "belong to another age of human history" even though the lives of so many saints, including the relatively few whose lives have been the subject of various articles, could be cited to bring forth evidence to refute the falsity of his propagandizing.

Consider just one such example, that of the patron saint of parish priests himself, Saint John Mary Vianney:

The explanation of this mysterious transformation of the village of Ars can only be grasped in the remarkable manner that this simple priest realized that a man must always begin with himself, and that even the rebirth of a community can only be achieved by its renewing itself. We must expect nothing of men which is not already embodied within them. On the basis of this perception St. John Vianney set to work, in the first place, upon himself, so that he could attain the ideal which he demanded of his parishioners in his own person. He took his own religious obligations with the greatest seriousness, and did not care whether the people noticed this or not. And finally the inhabitants of Ars said to each other: "Our priest always does what he says himself; he practices what he preaches. Never have we seen him allow himself any form of relaxation."

The priest of Ars subjected himself to a strict fast. In this way he sought to reduce the requirements of his life to minimum. One meal sufficed him for the whole day. He abstained from alcohol except wine at holy Mass and normally ate only a little black bread and one or two potatoes cooked in water: he would prepare sufficient of these to last him the whole week, keeping them in an earthenware pan, and often they were covered with a coating of mold. Frequently he fasted for a whole day until, overcome, he would collapse from physical weakness. In view of this mode of life he had no need, of course, of a housekeeper – apart from the fact that his house stood almost empty anyway. Since he considered that his self-mortification was all too inadequate, he had a special penitential garment made, which he wore next to his skin, and which, by reason of the constant friction against his body, was soon stained a reddish brown. For the most part he slept on a bare mattress when he was not sleeping on a bundle of wood down in the cellar.

St. John Vianney’s assiduity in the confessional and the hardships entailed thereby would, of themselves, have sufficed to raise him to high sanctity. However, he thirsted for mortifications as others thirst for pleasure, and he never had his fill of penance. He laid on himself the sacrifice never to enjoy the fragrance of a flower, never to taste fruit nor to drink, were it only a few drops of water, during the height of the summer heat. He would not brush away a fly that importuned him. When on his knees he would not rest his elbows on the kneeling bench. He had made a law unto himself never to show any dislike, and to hide all natural repugnances. He mortified the most legitimate curiosity: thus he never expressed so much as a wish to see the railway which passed by Ars at a distance of a few kilometers, and which daily brought him so many visitors. During the whole of his priestly life he never indulged in any light reading, not even that of a newspaper. The Annals of the Propagation of the Faith are the only periodical that he ever perused.

Regarding mortification, he once said, “My friend, the devil is not greatly afraid of the discipline and other instruments of penance. That which beats him is the curtailment of one’s food, drink and sleep. There is nothing the devil fears more, consequently, nothing is more pleasing to God. Oh! How often have I experienced it! Whilst I was alone – and I was alone during eight or nine years, and therefore quite free to yield to my attraction – it happened at times that I refrained from food for entire days. On those occasions I obtained, both for myself and for others, whatsoever I asked of Almighty God.”

St. John Vianney read much and often the lives of the saints, and became so impressed by their holy lives that he wanted for himself and others to follow their wonderful examples. The ideal of holiness enchanted him. This was the theme which underlay his sermons. “We must practice mortification. For this is the path which all the Saints have followed,” he said from the pulpit. He placed himself in that great tradition which leads the way to holiness through personal sacrifice. “If we are not now saints, it is a great misfortune for us: therefore we must be so. As long as we have no love in our hearts, we shall never be Saints.” The Saint, to him, was not an exceptional man before whom we should marvel, but a possibility which was open to all Catholics. Unmistakably did he declare in his sermons that “to be a Christian and to live in sin is a monstrous contradiction. A Christian must be holy.” With his Christian simplicity he had clearly thought much on these things and understood them by divine inspiration, while they are usually denied to the understanding of educated men. (The Story of Saint John Vianney.)

According to Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Saint John Mary Vianney did not "know the living God," and neither did the likes of Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, Saint John of God, Saint Mary Magdalene, Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Rose of Lima, Padre Pio and even Saint Francis of Assisi himself, who lived a life of austere penance and mortification. Saint John the Baptist, according to the likes of Bergoglio, did not “accompany” the wicked Herod the Tetrarch but engaged in “Pharisaical” judgmentalness.

Secondly, Saint John the Baptist defended Heavenly doctrine. Jorge Mario Bergoglio rebels against it.

Moreover, Saint John the Baptist sought to bring back to God those poor souls who had been were enveloped by the “darkness of error and ignorance” and had been “led astray by vice.” Jorge Mario Bergoglio reaffirms the Orthodox, Jews, Mohammedans, Buddhists, Hindus, Protestants, and an endless array of those steeped in the darkness of error and ignorance. “Pope Francis” has also comforted those who had been “led astray by vice” while many of his “bishops” insist that what they think, erroneously, of course, is the Catholic Church, must find “elements of true love” in sinful relationships, up to and unspeakable acts of perversion in violation of the binding precepts of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments and of the very Natural Law itself.

In other words, Jorge Mario Bergoglio would have excused the likes of Herod the Tetrarch, who was living with his brother Philip's wife even though his brother was still alive, and, of course, would have permitted King Henry VII to have "married" his partner in adultery, the scheming Anne Boleyn.

Thirdly, Saint John the Baptist “withstood the impiety of Herod.” Jorge Mario Bergoglio has laugh-fests with those who are today’s Herods, that is, the vast number of pro-abortion, pro-perversity officials in public life, while back slapping them, kissing the women among them, or smiling broadly without any trace of rebuke for their support of vile evils under the cover of the civil law. Bergoglio plays to the crowd, thus losing favor with Christ the King.

Fourth, the likes of Herod the Tetrarch enjoy the "Pope Francis's" favor today. Bergoglio, who supports the agenda of statists, each of whom supports the chemical and surgical slaughter of the innocent preborn and aggressively promote the agenda of those steeped in unrepentant sins of wanton perversity aginst the Sixth and Ninth Comandments (see He Speaks Like A Leftist")

The Argentine Apostate loves the applause of the world, and he goes to great lengths to caricature, belittle and denounce those within the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism who wants to insist on a return to the “no church” of yesteryear. Bergoglio’s black heart is a darkened one that is all about being “loved” by unrepentant sinners who have absolutely no intention of reforming their lives by quitting their sins and then living a life of prayer and penance in the spirit of that practiced by Saint Mary Magdalene after her she quit her own sins at the behest of the Divine Master Himself.

The Divine Office for the Feast of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist contains a powerful reflection on the martyrdom of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Precursor and cousin written by none other than Saint Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan who received Saint Augustine of Hippo into the Catholic Church:

We must not hurry by the record of the Blessed Baptist John. We must ask what he was, and by whom, and why, and how, and when he was slain. He was a righteous man murdered by adulterers. The guilty passed upon their judge the sentence of death. Moreover, the death of the Prophet was the fee of a dancing-girl. And lastly, there was a feature about it from which even savages shrink; the order for completing the atrocity was given amid the merriment of a dinner-party. From banquet to prison, from prison to banquet, that was the course run by the servants of the murderer. How many horrors does this simple crime embrace within its details?

Who is there, that, on seeing the messenger hasten from the dinner-table to the prison, would not have forthwith concluded that he carried an order for the Prophet's release. If any one had heard that it was Herod's birth-day, and that he was giving a great feast, and that he had offered a damsel the choice of whatever she listed, and that thereupon a messenger had been sent to John's dungeon. If any one, I say, had heard this, what would he have supposed? He would have concluded that the damsel had asked and obtained John's freedom. What have executions in common with dinners, or death with gaiety? While the banquet was going on, the Prophet was hurried to death, by an order from the reveller whom he had not troubled even by a prayer for release. He was slain with the sword, and his head was served up in a plate. This was the new dish demanded by a cruelty which the Feast had been powerless to glut.

Look, savage King, look at a decoration which suiteth well with thy banquet. Put out thine hand, so as to lose no part of the luxury of cruelty, and let the streams of the sacred blood run between thy fingers. Thine hunger the dinner hath been unable to satisfy, thy cups have not been able to quench thine inhuman thirst. Suck, suck the blood which the still palpitating veins are discharging from the place where the neck has been severed. Look at the eyes. Even in death they remain the eyes of a witness of thine uncleanness, but they are closing themselves upon the spectacle of thy pleasures. Those eyes indeed are shutting but it seems not so much from the laws of natural death, as from horror at the scene of thine enjoyment. The golden mouth, whose bloodless lips are silent now, can repeat no more the denunciation which thou couldest not bear to hear, and still thou art afraid of it. (Saint Ambrose, as found in Matins, The Divine Office, Feast of Saint John the Baptist.)

Bergoglio believes in coddling and excusing adulterers, preferring to save his condemnations for believing Catholics who understand that his agenda of "mercy" would have had him denounce Saint John the Baptist for his austerity of life and the severity of his preaching to the Jews.

As the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, has guided the composition of the Divine Office, it is thus appropriate that the other readings found in Matins for the Feast of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist come from Saint Ambrose's own convert, Saint Augustine:

The reading of the Holy Gospel hath set a scene of cruelty before our eyes even the head of St. John in a charger; a message of death sent forth to discharge the bloody commands of one that hateth the truth; a damsel dancing, and a mother rabid; a rash oath sworn in the midst of uncleanness and the revels of a supper, and a wicked fulfillment of the oath so sworn. It befell unto John according to his own saying. For he had said concerning the Lord Jesus Christ: He must increase, but I must decrease John iii. 30, so John decreased by an head, and Christ's height was made higher upon the Cross. The truth drew hatred. It could not be borne in patience that the holy man of God should utter a rebuke, albeit he sought by his rebuke nothing but the soul's health of them to whom he addressed it. They repaid him evil for good.

For what could he say but that whereof he was full? And what could they answer him but that whereof they were full? He sowed wheat, and found thorns. He had said unto the King: It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife. Lust had got the better of the King, and he kept a woman whom it was not lawful for him to have, even his brother's wife. But she pleased him, so that his cruelty was lulled. He respected the Saint who had spoken the truth to him. But the horrible woman conceived hatred, and by-and-by brought it forth. When she brought forth, she brought forth a girl, a dancing-girl. (Saint Augustine of Hippo, as found in Matins, The Divine Office, Feast of Saint John the Baptist.)

Dom Prosper Gureanger, O.S.B., praised the resolute nature of Saint John the Baptist’s rebuking of the Herod the Tetrarch for living with the wife of his brother Philip, Herodias, whilst his brother was still alive:

Thus died the greatest of them that are born of women: without witnesses, the prisoner of a petty tyrant, the victim of the vilest of passions, the wages of a dancing girl! Rather than keep silence in the presence of crime, although there were no hope of converting the sinner, or give up his liberty, even when in chains: the herald of the Word made flesh was ready to die. How beautiful, as St. John Chrysostom remarks, is this liberty of speech, when it is truly the liberty of God’s Word, when it is an echo of heaven’s language! Then, indeed, it is a stumbling-block to tyranny, the safeguard of the world, and of God’s rights, the bulwark of a nation’s honor as well as of its temporal and eternal interests. Death has no power over it. To the weak murderer of John the Baptist, and to all who would imitate him to the end of time, a thousand tongues, instead of one, repeat in all languages and in all places: It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife.

“O great and admirable mystery!” cries out St. Augustine. “He must increase, but I must decrease, said John, said the Voice which personified all the voices that had gone before announcing the Father’s Word Incarnate in his Christ. Every word, in that it signifies something, in that it is an idea, an internal word, is independent of the number of syllables, of the various letters and sounds; it remains unchangeable in the heart that conceives it, however numerous may be the words that give it outward existence, the voices that utter it, the languages, Greek, Latin and the rest, into which it may be translated. To him who knows the word, expressions and voices are useless. The Prophets were voices, the Apostles were voices; voices are in the Psalms, voices in the Gospel. But let the Word come, the Word who was in the beginning, the Word who was with God, the Word who was God; when we shall see him as he is, shall we hear the Gospel repeated? Shall we listen to the Prophets? Shall we read the Epistles of the Apostles? The Voice fails where the Word increases … Not that in himself the Word can either diminish or increase. But he is said to grow in us, when we grow in him. To him, then, who draws near to Christ, to him who makes progress in the contemplation of Wisdom, words are of little use; of necessity they tend to fail altogether. Thus the ministry of the voice falls short in proportion as the soul progresses towards the Word; it is thus that Christ must increase and John decrease. The same is indicated by the decollation of John, and the exaltation of Christ upon the cross; as it had already been shown by their birthdays: for from the birth of John the days begin to shorten, and from the birth of our Lord they begin to grow longer.” (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Feast of the Decollation of Saint John the Baptist, August 29.)

Remember, Saint John the Baptist leapt in the womb of his mother, Saint Elizabeth, at the moment of the Visitation of Our Lady, in whose Virginal and Immaculate Womb had been made Incarnate the very Word—the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity—Whose precursor Saint John the Baptist had been ordained from all eternity to be as the Last of the Old Testament Prophets. Saint John the Baptist was freed from Original Sin by the unborn Child Jesus in anticipation of the merits that He would win by the shedding of His Most Precious Blood during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday.

Saint John the Baptist was called by the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, to go into the wildness by the Jordan River to call sinners unto repentance, to dispute with the delegation of Jews sent to inquire about the nature of his mission and by whose authority he was baptizing, and to prepare the way for Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, his Divine Cousin and Redeemer, to commence His Public Ministry, starting with His submitting to his symbolic baptism of repentance in order to fulfill all that He caused to be written about Himself in the Sacred Scriptures. It was at that moment that, as the Holy Gospel, relates the voice of God the Father was heard as a dove, the symbol of God the Holy Ghost, hovered overhead:

[1] And in those days cometh John the Baptist preaching in the desert of Judea. [2] And saying: Do penance: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. [3] For this is he that was spoken of by Isaias the prophet, saying: A voice of one crying in the desert, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. [4] And the same John had his garment of camels' hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins: and his meat was locusts and wild honey. [5] Then went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the country about Jordan:

And were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins. [7] And seeing many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them: Ye brood of vipers, who hath shewed you to flee from the wrath to come? [8] Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of penance. [9] And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham for our father. For I tell you that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham. [10] For now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that doth not yield good fruit, shall be cut down, and cast into the fire.

[11] I indeed baptize you in the water unto penance, but he that shall come after me, is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear; he shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost and fire. [12] Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his floor and gather his wheat into the barn; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. [13] Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to the Jordan, unto John, to be baptized by him. [14] But John stayed him, saying: I ought to be baptized by thee, and comest thou to me? [15] And Jesus answering, said to him: Suffer it to be so now. For so it becometh us to fulfill all justice. Then he suffered him.

[16] And Jesus being baptized, forthwith came out of the water: and lo, the heavens were opened to him: and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon him. [17] And behold a voice from heaven, saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. (Matthew 3: 1-17.)

Saint John the Baptist told the Jews that he had to decrease and the One Whose way he was preparing, the One whose “shoes I am not worthy to bear,” had to decrease:

[21] But he that doth truth, cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest, because they are done in God. [22] After these things Jesus and his disciples came into the land of Judea: and there he abode with them, and baptized. [23] And John also was baptizing in Ennon near Salim; because there was much water there; and they came and were baptized. [24] For John was not yet cast into prison. [25] And there arose a question between some of John's disciples and the Jews concerning purification:

[26] And they came to John, and said to him: Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond the Jordan, to whom thou gavest testimony, behold he baptizeth, and all men come to him. [27] John answered, and said: A man cannot receive any thing, unless it be given him from heaven. [28] You yourselves do bear me witness, that I said, I am not Christ, but that I am sent before him. [29] He that hath the bride, is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, who standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth with joy because of the bridegroom's voice. This my joy therefore is fulfilled. [30] He must increase, but I must decrease. (John 3: 21-30.)

We must pray to Saint John the Baptist every day so that Our Lord will increase in us and we will decrease by mortifying our flesh in accordance with the warnings of Saint Paul the Apostle in his Epistle to the Galatians that was read today, Sunday, August 29, 2021, the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost:

Brethren: Walk in the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, so that you do not do what you would. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are immorality, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, witchcrafts, enmities, contentions, jealousies, anger, quarrels, factions, parties, envies, murders, drunkenness, carousings, and suchlike. And concerning these I warn you, as I have warned you, that they who do such things will not attain the kingdom of God. But of the fruit of the Spirit is: charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, long-suffering, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity. Against such things there is no law. And they who belong to Christ have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires. (Galatians 5: 16-24.)

Saint John the Baptist shows us the way to live penitential lives by crucifying our flesh with its passions and desires.” It is indeed a wonderful mercy within the Providence of God the great feast of the Decollation of Saint John the Baptist to fall on the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost as the last of the Old Testament Prophets exemplified the very spirit of penance and mortification described by Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., in his discourse on the lesson read at Holy Mass today:

Man, therefore, who was once a slave to concupiscence, has regained on the cross of Christ that equilibrium of his existence which is true liberty. The supremacy, which the soul had forfeited, in punishment for her revolt against God has been restored to her by the laver of the water of baptism, and now that she is once more queen, it is but just that she chastise the slave, who so long lorded it over her, his rightful sovereign. Man owes nothing to the flesh, especially after the miseries it has brought upon him; but further than this, God too has been insulted by the sensual abominations committed in his sacred presence; and he, too, demands atonement. For this purpose, her mercifully takes man, now that he is enfranchises, and confides to him the task of sharing with his divine Majesty, in taking revenge on their common enemy and usurper. Then again, this mortifying the flesh and keeping it in subjection is a necessary means for retaining the good position already obtained. It is true that the rebel has been made incapable of damaging those who are in Christ Jesus, and who walk not according to the flesh and its vile suggestions; but it is equally true that the rebel is rebel still, and is ever watching opportunities for assailing the spirit. If there be exceptions, they are exceedingly rare. The rule of the flesh is to attack the spirit all through life, and try to make it yield. If one were an Antony in the desert, the flesh would be fierce in its assaults even there. If the Saint were a Paul, just flesh from the third heaven of his sublime revelations, the flesh would have impudence enough to buffet even him. So that, had we no past sins to atone for, the commonest prudence would urge us to take severe measures of precaution against an enemy who is so fearfully untiring in his hatred of us, and what is worse, lives always in our own home. That St. Paul, of whom we were just speaking, says of himself: I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps … I should become reprobate!

Penance and Mortification differ in this: that, Penance is a debt of justice, incumbent on the sinner; Mortification is a duty commanded by prudence; which duty becomes that of every Christian who is not foolish enough to pretend to be out of the reach of concupiscence. Is there any one living who could honestly say that he has fully acquitted himself of these two duties: that he has satisfied the claims of God’s justice? and that he has stifled every germ of his evil passions? All spiritual masters, without exception, teach that no man who is desirous either for perfection or salvation should limit himself to the rules of simple Temperance, that cardinal virtue which forbids excess in pleasures, be they of one kind or another. This, they tell us, is not enough; and that the Christian, taking up another virtue, namely Fortitude, must, from time to time, refuse himself even lawful gratifications; must impose privations on himself which are not otherwise of obligation; must even inflict punishment on himself in the manner and measure permitted him by a discreet director. Amidst the thousands of holy writers who treat on this point of asceticism, let us listen to the amiable and gentle St. Francis of Sales: “If,” says he in his Introduction to a Devout Life, “If you can bear fasting, you would do well to fast on certain days, beyond those fasts which the Church commands us to observe … even when one does not fast much, yet does the enemy fear us all the more, when he knows that we know how to impose a fast on ourselves. Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays were the days whereon the Christians of former times most practices abstinence. Therefore, do you choose out of these for your fasts, as far as your devotion and the discretion of your director will counsel you to do … The discipline, when taken with moderation, possesses a marvelous power for awakening the desire for devotion. The hair-shirt is efficacious in reducing the body to subjection … on days which are especially devoted to penance, one may wear it, the advice of a discreet Confessor having been previously taken.” Thus speaks the learned Doctor of the Church, the saintly Bishop of Geneva, whose sweet prudence is almost proverbial; and they to whom he addresses these instructions are persons living in the world. In the world, quite as much as in the cloister, the Christian Life, if seriously taken up, imperatively requires this incessant war of the spirit against the flesh. Let that war cease, and the flesh speedily usurps the sway and reduces the soul to a state of torpor, by either seizing her very first attempts at virtue and chilling them into apathy, or by plunging her, at a single throw, deep into the filth of sin.

Neither is it to be feared that affability in the Christian’s social intercourse will be in any way impaired by this energy of self-mortification. That virtue which is based on such forgetfulness of oneself as to make him love discomfort and suffering for God’s sale, does not render such a man one whit less pleasing in company, nor rob the friendly circle he frequents of one single charm. But will it not interfere somewhat with an article which the world is very jealous about? No: when Dress is what every Christian reserve would have it be—in other and plainer words, when it is the love of Jesus that regulates the arrangements—there is no toilet where the jewels of penance may not find their place without in the least intruding with those of the world. The day of judgment will give a strange lesson to those many good-for-nothing and cowardly Christians who feel sure that every one of their acquaintance is as fond of easy-going softness as they themselves are! Then will be revealed to them the pious schemes of penance, which Christian love of the Cross suggested, as means for crucifying their flesh even amidst pleasures, and to those very persons, who were the most admired in the worldling’s earthly paradise of wild saloons.

And ought it not to be thus? ought not the Cross to be most dear to men? Yes, unless we hold that Christianity and divine love have entirely disappeared from this world. How is it possible to love Jesus, the Man of sorrows, and not love his sufferings? Can we say that we are walking in his footsteps if we are not on the road to Calvary? If any man will come after me, says this Jesus, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me! And the Church, who is one with her divine Spouse—the Church who completes Him in all things and therefore continues through all ages his life of expiation and atonement, puts on her children the sublime task, which the Apostle thus expresses: I fill up those things, that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, by suffering in my flesh for his body, which is the Church.

Sublime task indeed! filial, as far as the Church is concerned, but divine also, and deifying, if we consider the union it produces between the Word and the Soul: he, the Word, gives to the soul what he has not given to the Angels; that is, he invites her to a share of that Chalice, which the Eternal Father reserved to Jesus’ sacred Humanity. Here we have the intimacy of the Bride—the one same Cup for the Two, and it unites their two lives into one. It is a Cup of sorrow’s holy inebriation; they both drink it with avidity; and that avidity gives such vehemence to their union, that the creature at times leaves her ecstasy all stigmatized in soul, yea, it may be in her body too, with the Wounds of her Crucified Lord. But whether our Lord communicate or not, either invisibly or visibly, the stigmata of his love to the soul that is devoted to Him—there is always, under one form or other, the royal seal, which gives the surest sign of authenticity to the contract of divine union here below; that seal is suffering. Many—who on hearing or reading the favors gratuitously granted to certain saintly souls, are excited to a feeling of holy envy—would shrink back with dismay if they were told of the trials they had to go through before gaining such mystic ascensions. Even when the trials of purification (of which we were speaking on the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost) are all over, the place of meeting is invariably that which the inspired Canticle calls the Mount of myrrh, which is but another name for suffering. Myrrh is the first fragrant herb culled by the divine Word in the mystic garden—nay, it is the only one he expressly mentions. Myrrh distills from the Bride’s hands, and her fingers are full of it; her Spouse is the bouquet she clasps to her heart, but that bouquet is one of Myrrh; and his lips are as lilies dropping choice Myrrh.

Of course, we are too miserable ever to aspire to be raised up by the Holy Spirit to those heights of the mystic life, where divine union produces such marvelous results as those we have already mentioned; but let us remember that neither the intensity nor the merit of love, no, not even the reality of effective Union, depend on those exterior manifestations. It should suffice to make us love, and even go in quest of suffering, to remember how faith teaches us that it was life-long with Him who wishes, and infinitely deserves, to be the one object of our thoughts and affections. We are members of a Head who was crowned with thorns; can we pretend to have nothing but pleasures and flowers? Let us not forget that all the Saints must, when in heaven, be likenesses of the new Adam; and that the Eternal Fathers admits no one into his House who is not comformable to the image of his Son. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost.)

Saint John the Baptist was ready to die a martyr as he bore witness to the fact of the indissolubility of a ratified and consummated marriage. Moreover, Saint John the Baptist knew that he was to die so that his disciples would follow the One He proclaimed to be and is in fact, the Lamb of God, Who takest way the sins of the world:

[19] And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent from Jerusalem priests and Levites to him, to ask him: Who art thou? [20] And he confessed, and did not deny: and he confessed: I am not the Christ.

[21] And they asked him: What then? Art thou Elias? And he said: I am not. Art thou the prophet? And he answered: No. [22] They said therefore unto him: Who art thou, that we may give an answer to them that sent us? What sayest thou of thyself? [23] He said: I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Isaias. [24] And they that were sent, were of the Pharisees. [25] And they asked him, and said to him: Why then dost thou baptize, if thou be not Christ, nor Elias, nor the prophet?

[26] John answered them, saying: I baptize with water; but there hath stood one in the midst of you, whom you know not. [27] The same is he that shall come after me, who is preferred before me: the latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to loose. [28] These things were done in Bethania, beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing. [29] The next day, John saw Jesus coming to him, and he saith: Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who taketh away the sin of the world. [30] This is he, of whom I said: After me there cometh a man, who is preferred before me: because he was before me. (John 1: 19-26.)

Holy Mother Church, guided infallibly by God the Holy Ghost, has incorporated those word, Ecce Agnus Dei, ecce qui tollis peccata mundi, into the very fabric of her liturgy after the priest fractions the consecrated Host and lets a particle of it fall into the Chalice containing Our Lord’s Most Precious Blood as He prays quietly the following words:

Hæc commíxtio, et consecrátio Córporis et Sánguinis Dómini nostri Jesu Christi, fiat accipiéntibus nobis in vitam ætérnam. Amen.

May this mixture and consecration of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ be to us who receive it effectual unto eternal life. Amen.

(As a side note, perhaps it is relevant to point out here what I had in the new and vastly revised edition of G.I.R.M. Warfare: The Conciliar Church's Unremitting Warfare Against Catholic Faith and Worship, namely, that the word “consecration” (“consecration”) was omitted by the members of the Consilium who planned the synthetic travesty known as the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service. I, for one, do not think that this was any accident, believing, as I have come to understand, that this was the adversary’s very bold and proud way to proclaim that no actual consecration takes place in the Novus Ordo service.)

Yes, Saint John the Baptist always points the way to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ if we beg him for his help to do so and are willing to follow his path of penance and mortification, which might very well include the sort of mortification required to accept the calumnies and hatred of even family members or former friends and associates for coming to the conclusion that the See of Saint Peter has been vacant since the death of Pope Pius XII on October 9, 1958, the Feast of Saint John Leonard and the Commemoration of Saints Dionysius, Rusticus, and Eleutherius.

The instruction that Our Lady gave to the Venerable Mary of Agreda on the beheading of Saint John the Baptist, a martyr for the sanctity and indissolubility of a valid marriage, serves as a salutary lesson to us all and, of course, a stunning rebuke to the "merciful" Jorge Mario Bergoglio:

My daughter, thou hast been very sparse in describing the mysteries of this chapter, yet a great lesson is contained therein for thee and all the children of light. Write in thy heart and notice well the great difference between the sanctity and purity of the Baptist, who was poor, afflicted, persecuted and imprisoned, and the abominable wickedness of Herod, the powerful king, who was flattered and served in the midst of his riches and base pleasures. Both were of the same human nature, but entirely different in the sight of God based upon how they used their free will and the created things around them for good or evil. The penance, poverty, humility, contempt and tribulations of St. John, and his zeal for the glory of my divine Son, merited for him the singular favor of dying in our arms. Herod, on the contrary, by his hollow pomp, his pride, vanity, tyranny and wickedness was struck down by the minister of God in order to be punished in the eternal flames of hell. Remember the same happens now and always in the world, though men do not pay attention to it or fear it; rather, they fear the vain strength of the world, not reflecting that it is but fleeting shadow and withering grass.

367. Just as little do men think of their last end, and of the abyss into which their vices draw them even in this world. Although the demon cannot take away the liberty of man, nor ever completely sway his free will, yet by leading them into so many and grievous sins he obtains such an influence over their free will that he is enabled to use them as an instrument of the evil he proposes. In spite of witnessing so many and such terrible examples, men remain callous to the fearful danger to which they expose themselves by their sins in imitation of Herod and his adulterous concubine. In order to cast souls into this abyss of wickedness Lucifer meets them with the vain pride and honor of this world, and with its base pleasures, representing them as alone important and desirable. Thus the ignorant children of perdition loosen the bonds of reason in order to follow the degrading pleasures of their flesh and be enslaved by their mortal enemy. My daughter, the Savior and I have taught the way of humility, contempt and tribulation. This is the royal road upon which we first walked and of which we have set ourselves up as Teachers. We are the Protectors of all the afflicted and persecuted, ready to assist by miraculous and special favors all those who call upon us in their necessities. Of this assistance and protection the followers of this world and its vain pleasures deprive themselves, since they hate the way of the cross. To it thou hast been called and invited, and because of it thou art favored with the sweetness of my loving guidance. Follow me and labor to imitate me, since thou hast found the secret treasure and the precious pearl (Mt. 13:44-5), for the possession of which thou must despise all that is earthly and give up all human freedom insofar as it is contrary to the pleasure of my most exalted Lord. (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God, Volume III: The Transfixion, Book VI, Chapter IV: New English Edition of The Mystical City of God.)

How can those who are skeptical of the edifying worth of The Mystical City of God not realize that these words could not have come from the adversary?

Countless souls have been uplifted and brought closer to God as a result of their prayerful meditation upon the contents of The Mystical City of God. One of those was the late Father Martin Stepanich, O.F.M., S.T.D., whose devotion to it opened my eyes to seeing in the Venerable Mary of Agreda, to whom these private revelations were given by the Queen of Heaven, an instrument to help lukewarm souls to grow ever close to Our Lord through His Most Blessed Mother, thus effecting conversions from lukewarmness to a profound sense of abandonment to the pursuit of sanctity by detaching oneself more and more from the passing things of this mortal vale of tears. For a fuller defense of The Mystical City of God, see the final selection in this volume of reflections about the life of Father Solanus Casey, O.F.M., Cap. (Simply Holy: Father Solanus Casey, O.F.M., Cap.).

Jorge Mario Bergoglio has no use for denunciations of adultery, and he is fully at peace with immodest dress, thus making it more accepting for even many traditional Catholics, no matter where they may fall along the vast expanse of the ecclesiastical divide at this time of apostasy and betrayal, to dress immodestly and to even make light of the personal sins caused in the souls of others who view such immodesty. The following words, contained in The Mystical City God, are thus very salutary for us all:

And yet many are thus degraded without adverting thereto, and so much the greater is their degradation the more immodest the woman they follow, for having lost the virtue of modesty nothing remains in a woman which is not most despicable and abominable in the sight of God and man. (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God, Volume III: The Transfixion, Book VI, Chapter IV: New English Edition of The Mystical City of God.)

How are such words harmful to souls?

We must follow the example of Saint John the Baptist, not that of a man who is at war with Christ the King and the Sacred Deposit of the Holy Faith that He has entrusted exclusively to His Catholic Church for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication.

We must live penitentially by mortifying ourselves as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, praying as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits.

Vivat Christus Rex!

Viva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady of the Rosary, us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint Rose of Lima, pray for us.

Saints Felix and Adauctus, pray for us.

Appendix

The Mystical City of God on the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist

360. Thus deceived, his fury against the Baptist outgrew all bounds. But remembering his defeats in the battles against the Savior, and conscious of having had just as little success in leading St. John into a fault of any gravity, he resolved to make war upon him by another channel, and he found such a channel already prepared. The Baptist had reprehended Herod for his disgraceful and adulterous union with Herodias, who had openly left her husband Philip, Herod’s brother, as is related by the Evangelists (Mt. 14:3-4; Mk. 6:17-18; Lk. 3:19). Herod knew the holiness and reasoning of St. John; he held him in respect and fear, and heard him willingly. But whatever force the truth and the light of reason exerted in Herod, it was readily perverted to evil by the malicious and boundless hatred of the wicked Herodias and her daughter, who was like her mother in morals. The adulteress was deeply degraded by her passions and sensuality, and by this was well disposed to be the instrument of the demon in whatever evil he proposed. The demon first instigated her to bring about the death of St. John by various means, and she incited the king to behead the Baptist. Herod having imprisoned St. John, who was the voice of God himself and the greatest of those born of woman, † the day arrived in which he was to celebrate the anniversary of his unhappy birth by a banquet and ball given by him for the magistrates and nobles of Galilee (Mk. 6:21), of which he was king. The degraded Herodias brought her daughter to the feast in order to dance before the guests. The blinded and adulterous king was so taken in by the dancing girl that he promised her any gift or favor she desired, even if it were the half of his kingdom. She, directed by her mother and both of them by the cunning of the serpent, asked for more than a kingdom, yea, more than many kingdoms, namely the head of John the Baptist, and that it be given to her immediately on a plate. The king commanded it to be done due to the oath he had taken and because he had subjected himself to the influence of a vile and degraded woman. Men are accustomed to consider it an unbearable offense to be called a woman, because they think it denies them the superiority deemed peculiar to manhood; but it is a greater disgrace to be governed and led about by the whims of women, for he who obeys is inferior to the one who commands. And yet many are thus degraded without adverting thereto, and so much the greater is their degradation the more immodest the woman they follow, for having lost the virtue of modesty nothing remains in a woman which is not most despicable and abominable in the sight of God and man.

361. During the imprisonment of St. John, at the insistence of Herodias, he was much favored by our Savior and his heavenly Mother by means of the holy Angels, whom the great Lady sent to visit him many times, and sometimes She sent him food, commanding the Angels to prepare and bring it to him. The Lord also conferred on him many interior graces and favors. But the demon, who wished to destroy him, gave no rest to Herodias until he saw him dead. He eagerly seized the occasion of the banquet, inciting Herod to utter that foolish promise and oath for the sake of the daughter of Herodias, and confusing his mind so he impiously looked upon the failure to fulfill his sworn promise as a sin and a dishonor; and hence in his blindness he delivered the head of the Baptist to the dancing girl, as is related in the Gospel (Mk. 6:27). At the same time the Princess of the world knew in the interior of her most holy Son (by the usual manner) that the hour of martyrdom had arrived for the Baptist, and that he would give his life in testimony of the truths he had preached. The most pure Mother prostrated Herself at the feet of Christ our Lord and tearfully implored Him to assist his servant and Precursor in that hour, to comfort and console him, and that his death be so much the more precious in his eyes since he would suffer for the honor and defense of the truth.

362. The Savior responded to her petition with much pleasure, saying He would fulfill it entirely and bidding Her to accompany Him immediately on a visit to St. John. Then Christ and his holy Mother were miraculously and invisibly borne to the dungeon cell where St. John lay fettered in chains and wounded in many parts of his body, for the wicked adulteress, wishing to do away with him, had ordered some of her servants (six on three different occasions) to scourge and maltreat him, which they did in order to please their mistress. By this means that tigress had attempted to murder the Baptist before the banquet at which Herod commanded him to be beheaded. The demon incited these cruel henchmen so with great wrath they might injure him in deed and word with great contumelies and blasphemies against his person and the doctrine he preached, for they were most perverse men, appropriate servants and private ministers of such a wretched, adulterous and scandalous woman. The presence of Christ and his Blessed Mother filled that foul prison of the Baptist with celestial light. While the other parts of the palace of Herod were infested by innumerable demons and sycophants more criminal than the state prisoners in the dungeons below, the cell of St. John was entirely sanctified by the presence of the Sovereigns of heaven, who were accompanied by a great host of Angels.

363. As soon as the Precursor beheld before him the Redeemer and his most holy Mother in the midst of the angelic hosts, his chains fell from him and his wounds were healed. With ineffable joy he prostrated himself on the ground and in deepest humility and admiration asked the blessing of the incarnate Word and his Blessed Mother. Having fulfilled his request, they remained for some time holding divine colloquies with their friend and servant which I cannot repeat in entirety here, though I shall mention some of what impressed itself more vividly on my dull mind. In kindest tone and manner the Savior said: “John, my servant, how eagerly dost thou precede thy Master in being scourged, imprisoned and afflicted, and in offering thy life and suffering death for the glory of my Father even before I myself thus suffer! Thy desires are quickly approaching their fulfillment, since thou art soon to enjoy thy reward of suffering tribulations such as I myself have in view for my humanity. It is thus the eternal Father rewards the zeal with which thou hast fulfilled the office of being my Precursor. Let thy loving anxieties now cease and offer thy now cease and offer thy neck to the axe, for such is my desire, and thus shalt thou enjoy the happiness of suffering and dying for my Name. I offer to the eternal Father thy life so mine be yet prolonged.” neck to the axe, for such is my desire, and thus shalt thou enjoy the happiness of suffering and dying for my Name. I offer to the eternal Father thy life so mine be yet prolonged.”

364. The sweetness and power of these words penetrated the heart of the Baptist and filled it with such delights of divine love that for a time he could not give any answer. But being reinforced by divine grace and dissolved in tears, he thanked his Lord and Master for the ineffable favor of this visit, which was now added to so many other great ones he had received at his hands, and with sighs of love from his inmost soul he said: “My eternal God and Lord, I cannot ever merit pains or sufferings worthy of such a great consolation and privilege as that of enjoying thy divine presence and that of thy exalted Mother, my Lady; altogether unworthy am I of this new blessing. So thy boundless mercy may be exalted permit me, Lord, to die in thy presence, so thy holy Name may be made more widely known, and look with favor on my desire of enduring the most painful and lingering death. Let Herod and sin, and hell itself, triumph over me in my death, for I offer my life for Thee, my Beloved, in the joy of my heart; receive it, my God, as a pleasing sacrifice. And thou, Mother of my Savior and my Lady, turn thy most loving eyes in clemency upon thy servant and continue to show him thy favor as a Mother and as the cause of all our good. During all my life I have despised vanities and loved the cross which is to be sanctified by my Redeemer, and I have desired to sow in tears (Ps. 125:5); but never could I have merited the delight of such a visit, which has sweetened all my sufferings, gladdened my bondage, and makes death itself more pleasing and acceptable than life.”

365. While they were yet engaged in this conversation, three servants of Herod entered his prison with a hangman ready to execute upon him the implacable fury of the cruel adulteress. St. John presented his neck and the executioner fulfilled the impious order of Herod by cutting off his head. The High Priest Christ at the same moment received in his arms the body of the greatest of those born of woman, while his Blessed Mother held his head in her hands, both of them offering this victim to the eternal Father on the altar of their sacred hands. This was possible not only because the two Sovereigns of the world were invisible, but also because the servants of Herod had begun to quarrel as to which of them would flatter the infamous dancer and her mother by bringing them the head of St. John. In their dispute one of them, without paying attention to any other circumstance, snatched the head from the hands of the Queen of heaven and the rest of them followed in order to offer it on a plate to the daughter of Herodias. The sacred soul of the Baptist, in the company of a multitude of Angels, was sent to limbo, and his arrival renewed the joy of the holy souls there imprisoned. The Sovereigns of heaven returned to the place from whence they had come. Regarding the sanctity and excellence of the great Precursor many things are written in the Church, and though I have been informed of several other mysteries concerning him which I could relate, I cannot depart from my original purpose or extend this History in writing of them. I wish only to say that the fortunate and blessed Precursor of Christ received great favors at the hands of Christ the Redeemer and his holy Mother during the whole course of his life, in his happy birth, his stay in the desert, his preaching, and in his holy death. Such wonders were wrought for no other man by the right hand of God.

TEACHING OF MARY MOST HOLY, THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN

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On the [Commemorated] Feast of the Decollation (Beheading) of Saint John the Baptist

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