My
name is John—John the Baptist. I was one of the very first people to
recognize that Jesus is the Son of God. My mother Elizabeth loves to tell the
story of how when she was pregnant with me, she had a visit from Mary, who was
pregnant with Jesus. And when Mary greeted her I leapt in my mother’s womb! So
you might say I’ve been preaching Jesus’ name since before I was born. And here
in heaven, I’m still pointing the way to Jesus, and telling people what I found
out a long time ago: Jesus is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the
world. 
Neri di
Bicci speaks: If you look close, you can see that John the Baptist is
wearing camel hair, as it says in the Gospels; but now that he’s in heaven, I
thought he might like to wear something more glorious. So I gave him a dark red
robe, to wear over his camel hair. Red lake pigment is very expensive, but it’s
very striking, don’t you think? And it helps remind us that John the Baptist was
a martyr, because red is the color of martyrs.PRAYER
Saint John the Baptist, you pointed the way to Jesus.
Keep pointing the way to Jesus for us.
Help us to find him in the ordinary events
of our daily lives.
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us!