Today is John the Baptist's feast day. I heard a reflection on his role in the life of the Church given by a soft spoken Hispanic priest from the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops' website this morning. He, like so many others, has been enjoying the World Cup soccer matches. He likened St. John the Baptist to a coach. John was apparently Jesus' cousin and he himself was a tender of souls. His admonitions to repent and be saved are like coaching. John prepared the people of Jesus' day for the ministry of Jesus. With humility, John recognized that Jesus was a "greater player" and that his job was to ready the field for Jesus to plant and spread the good news. I like this image a lot. It's not a perfect analogy, because I see Jesus' father as being the real coach, but the other point that the priest made was that we are to be like John with eachother. We are to encourage one another to hearken to the voice of God in us... to be the best we can be in our spiritual lives. It seems to me that what John did and what we are invited to do is just to remind eachother that we are children of God and that we are well loved. Knowing that, we are free to love one another. With so many other messages about who we are or are supposed to be, this message can strangely be missed. Thank you St. John the Baptist... for pointing the way.
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