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!

Back to the whole painting