“The Voice That Could Not Be Silenced”
The Watchman’s Lamp
August 29, 2025
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Today Holy Mother Church commemorates one of the most sobering feasts of the liturgical year: the beheading of St. John the Baptist. The Gospels tell us the harrowing account of a prophet silenced by a cowardly ruler, a corrupt court, and a vengeful woman. Yet though John’s head was severed from his body, his voice was not silenced. The Baptist still cries out across the centuries: “Do penance: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2).
The Church dares not forget this voice, for in every age the truth faces the fury of the powerful. In every age, cowardice conspires with sin to suppress the inconvenient demands of God’s law. And in every age, God raises up witnesses who refuse to bend.
Let us begin with the Gospel account, taken from St. Mark:
“For Herod himself had sent and apprehended John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, the wife of his brother Phillip, because he had married her. For John said to Herod: It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife. Now Herodias laid snares for him; and was desirous to put him to death and could not. For Herod feared John, knowing him to be a just and holy man; and kept him, and when he heard him, did many things: and he heard him willingly. And when a convenient day was come, Herod made a supper for his birthday, for the princes, and tribunes, and chief men of Galilee. And when the daughter of the same Herodias had come in, and had danced, and pleased Herod, and them that were at table with him, the king said to the damsel: Ask of me what thou wilt, and I will give it thee. And he swore to her: Whatsoever thou shalt ask, I will give thee, though it be the half of my kingdom. Who when she was gone out, said to her mother, What shall I ask? But her mother said: The head of John the Baptist. And when she was come in immediately with haste to the king, she asked, saying: I will that forthwith thou give me in a dish, the head of John the Baptist. And the king was struck sad: yet because of his oath, and because of them that were with him at table, he would not displease her. But sending an executioner, he commanded that his head should be brought in a dish. And he beheaded him in the prison, and brought his head in a dish; and gave it to the damsel, and the damsel gave it to her mother” (Mark 6:17-28).
Continue reading at Pillars of Faith