Take a look at the new book trailer, ABOVE, for our latest “Sacred Stories/Sacred Seasons” picture book, which is available now on Amazon.com, here!
The Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist is one of the oldest on the Church calendar, dating to the 4th century, and one of the few besides that of Jesus Himself which commemorates the nativity, or birth of a saint, rather than the date of his or her death.
The water is rising! It’s St. John’s Eve — Midsummer — and young Becket is taking advantage of the drought to search the ruins of the old town church, normally under water, to search for the miraculous relic of St. John the Baptist. But the rain has returned in a torrent and it may take a miracle to save Becket and his family.
John the Baptist, of course, was Jesus’ cousin, expressing his joy at the coming of his Savior by leaping even while still in the womb of his mother, Elizabeth, when Mary, Mother of Jesus, visited her while carrying Jesus in her own body. The Bible records John’s birth as taking place six months before that of Jesus, hence June 24 (likely that date rather than 25th due to the Roman method of counting days backward from the following month). Traditionally the EVE of the feast — so June 23 — has been the time of celebration, as it continues to be in many places throughout the world.
By the 6th century, a vigil for the feast — taking place on the night before the actual feast day — had become common, with the lighting of great bonfires soon part of the observation of the “summer Christmas” that the feast had become. The symbolism of fire was no accident; the Baptist was a shining light, showing the way to Christ (it was he who first pointed people to Jesus while baptizing in the Jordan River, calling him the “Lamb of God” and insisting he was unworthy to tie the thongs of Jesus’ sandals).
St. John’s Eve has long been closely tied with the longstanding observation of Midsummer in many cultures around the world, and in some places young lovers searched the forest for the magical fern flower said to bloom only on that holy night. And as with many particularly holy feasts, the wall between Heaven and Earth was considered thinner, and some old traditions of fairies being more visible on this night long prevailed. This undergirded the plot of Shakesepeare’s famous play, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
The feast related also to the Russian Modest Mussorgsky’s musical composition, “Night on Bald Mountain,” originally titled, “St. John’s Night on the Bare Mountain,” itself based on the story “St. John’s Eve” by Nikolai Gogol, among other works tied to the feast.
And so, while largely lost in historically Protestant America, St. John’s Eve provides an opportunity for Catholics and other Christians to revive a long-beloved, ancient, and joyous celebration rife with rich traditions — another small means of much-needed restoration of Catholic/Christian culture.