The Nativity of St John the Baptist falls on June 24. Almost every sermon on this occasion remarks that it is an unusual thing to celebrate a saint’s birthday. Most saints’ days are on or around the date of death of the saint; apart from Our Lord and Our Lady, only John the Baptist gets an explicit birthday feast.
Why should this be? Surely, because it is how the Gospel begins! At least, the annunciation of the pregnancy of Elizabeth to Zechariah is how the narrative of St Luke’s Gospel starts, after the dedicatory prologue. This annunciation is the first of seven episodes within Luke’s infancy narrative, followed by the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Visitation, the Nativity of John, the Nativity of the Lord, the Presentation in the Temple and the Finding of the Child Jesus in the same temple 12 years later.
