The Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

The Gospel of Luke tells that the angel Gabriel appeared to the priest Zechariah in the Temple and announced that his wife Elizabeth, old and childless, would bear a son. Zechariah doubted and was struck mute. When the child was born and the relatives wanted to name him after his father, Elizabeth said, “He shall be called John,” and Zechariah wrote the same on a tablet; at once he could speak again, and he sang the hymn known as the Benedictus.

Tradition places John’s birth at Ain Karem near Jerusalem. The feast is kept six months before Christmas, as Luke counts. John later preached repentance by the Jordan, baptized Jesus and was beheaded by Herod Antipas, about 29.