In his first book, Saint Mary Magdalene: Prophetess of Eucharistic Love, Fr Sean Davidson offered a series of profound reflections on the life and virtues of the apostle to the apostles. Now Fr Davidson has done a great service to the Church by producing a new book, this time on St John the Baptist.
The book is published by Emmaus Road, and its title – Prophet of Fire: The Witness of St John the Baptist – is instructive. John the Baptist is not only a prophet but the greatest of the prophets. In the mysterious workings of divine providence, more than 400 years elapsed between the death of Malachi and John’s conception in the womb of Elizabeth. When this near half-millennium of prophetic silence was finally broken, it was because the fullness of time had finally arrived and the advent of the Messiah had come. The Catechism puts it beautifully: “In John’s sight, the Spirit thus brings to completion the careful search of the prophets and fulfils the longing of the angels” (§719).
