Great Expectations

What then will this child be?

Today we celebrate a rare type of Feast.

The Feast of the Nativity, the birth, of a saint.

We usually celebrate the day of a saint's entry into heaven—their death.

The only Nativities we celebrate are those of Jesus and Mary.

And this one other special saint, John the Baptist.

There are particularly wondrous circumstances surrounding John’s birth.

It's a time of new beginnings.

A time of Great Expecations.

And John's life measures up to those expectations.

Jesus himself would say, no man on earth was greater than John.

That question raised at John's birth is a good one to contemplate.

It’s a question we raise when each child is born.

It’s a question that was raised when each of us were born.

What then will this child be?

We may think that question’s already been answered

With regard to ourselves.

We’ve been around for quite some time.

We're pretty set in our ways.

But no matter how many decades we’ve logged.

We’re still God’s children.

We're still works in progress.

None of us here have yet finished our journey.

We can always find a few things to improve.

A few things to draw ourselves closer to God.

And we still have time.

We all have a constant opportunity to make a new beginning.

And today is a good time to ask ourselves,

About ourselves,

What then will this child be?

Nativity of John the Baptist

Lk 1:57-66          Read this Scripture @usccb.org