Saint John the Baptist Feast Day Celebrations are coming up!
On Monday 24 June, all SJB students will enjoy a whole day of special festivities in honour of the patron saint of our community. Complete with a School Band Performance, Storytelling, Craft, Outdoor Activities, Mass, Sausage Sizzle Lunch and a Treat Stall.
Parents, carers and younger or non-student siblings are invited for join from 11:10am for the Outdoor Activity Rotations, 12:30pm for Mass in the School Hall, followed by a sausage sizzle lunch and early departure (optional).
More details to follow on Compass soon, including the Treat Stall price list so you can send in some coins with your child on the day, should you choose to.
RSVP before Thursday 20 June at this link, if you are planning to attend and/or are available to help on the day. RSVP’s will help for catering purposes. Looking forward to the celebrations.
The Life of St John the Baptist
John the Baptist was the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth. She was the cousin of Mary who visited her. One day an angel appeared to Zechariah and announced that he was to have a son named John, who would prepare Israel for the messiah. Zechariah doubted that Elizabeth, his aged wife, could bear a child. He asked for a sign, and the angel obliged. Zechariah was struck mute until John’s birth. When the baby was born, the old man cuddled him and celebrated with a prophetic song as his voice had returned.
St John began his ministry thirty years later. He called people to repent and baptised them in water as a sign of purification. Jesus himself approached John for baptism “Behold the lamb of God,” John declared to the crowds, “who takes away the sin of the world.” He resisted baptising Jesus but agreed when Jesus explained that he wanted to set an example of righteous behaviour.
Herod, the ruler of Galilee, arrested John because he feared the Baptist might generate a rebellion. John had also embittered Herod by condemning his marriage to Herodias, his half-brother’s wife. While in prison, John was bothered with doubt about Jesus. He had expected the messiah to come more forcefully with a “winnowing fan in his hand to clear the threshing floor.” Thus, he sent his disciples to ask Jesus if he was really the Messiah.
Jesus responded that he fulfilled all the messianic signs, healing the blind, the deaf, the lame, and lepers, raising the dead, and preaching good news to the poor. Then Jesus praised John to the crowds as “more than a prophet” and as the greatest man who ever lived. One evening Herod threw a party for Galilee’s upper crust. Herodias’s daughter entertained, dancing so beautifully that Herod offered to reward her with anything she desired. Her mother told her to ask for John the Baptist’s head on a platter. Herod kept his promise. Without even a pretence of a trial, he gave the order and a soldier beheaded John at the prison.
His feast day is the 24th of June.
