The Catholic Calendar for Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Tuesday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time
The Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist

Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
2 Thessalonian 2:1-3a, 14-17
Psalm 96:10, 11-12, 13
Mark 6:17-29

A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:

Today the Church celebrates the Memorial Feast of the beheading of John the Baptist, a grisly story about how far evil forces will go in an attempt to silence the Truth. It is a story that has been repeated over and over even to this day, these times.

What we need to remember when faced with horrific violence is that whenever sin is rampant and "hell bent" on the destruction of goodness, so too are there present the opposite forces of holiness and heroic virtue. God always provides a sufficient antidote for the poisonous effects of sin.

Remembrance of Christ's promised victory over sin and death is something we must nurture, lest we lose hope and become paralyzed by worry and fear. Daily reading of Holy Scripture can help us maintain mental stability in an unstable world, by illustrating for us how God is ever-present in all mankind's difficulties and ultimately victorious by merit of His glorious Resurrection.

So don't lose heart, but instead do your part by being properly oriented toward heaven and heavenly things and then by assisting others to do the same. That's what John the Baptist did; may we in our own way and time do the same.

“Prepare ye the way of the Lord!”

- Donna Nelson, OCDS
(drn3rd at hughes dot net)