Vigils Reading – Nativity of St John the Baptist

HE MUST INCREASE

AND I MUST DECREASE

By Msgr. Ronald Knox3

◊◊◊

In St John the Baptist you could almost say that the hatred of prominence

was born in him. Always we see St John is pointing, always away from himself.

“Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world” – there, don’t

look at me, look at him; don’t ask who I am, ask who he is. There comes one

after me, who is greater than I, the latches of whose shoe I am not worthy to

loose.

Everyone is crowded round St John, everyone wanting to know who he is,

and he will let them see nothing but the finger that points to a greater than

himself, let them hear nothing but the voice of the forerunner who preaches a

gospel not his own.

And gradually, as our Lord more and more allowed this attention to be

directed towards himself, he, instead of his forerunner, became the center of

interest. “The pupil is outstripping the master“, people will have said; for I

think it’s fairly certain that our Lord, at the opening of his ministry, was

regarded as the disciple of St John, the man who had baptized him. And one by

one the little groups that listened to the Baptist on the rocky hills by Jordan

melted away, and he knew that they had gone off to follow the new Teacher,

who, traveling from village to village, was more easy of access. Perhaps they

even thought that in so transferring their allegiance from the stern prophet of

the desert with his wild clothes and rough manner to the Friend of publicans

and sinners, they were taking an easier yoke upon themselves…

The followers of John became fewer, the audiences of the Galilean

Prophet more numerous. And I want you to see that if St John had been a

smaller man, if he had looked upon his winning popularity in the way in which

you and I would look upon such a thing if it were to happen to ourselves, it

would have been impossible for him not to feel a pang of jealousy at having been

obeyed so well, at having been so successful in diverting attention from himself

to his Master. “He might have left me just a little work to do, just a few souls to

deal with; he might have given me some part to play in his mission“; it’s not

difficult to imagine St John feeling like that.

But that was not St John’s way. “He must increase, and I must decrease“

, so he assures the little band that still remain faithful to him, as if it were the

most natural thing in the world. And again, “The friend of the bridegroom, who

stands and hears him, rejoices with joy because of the bridegroom’s voice“.

Our Lord has come to claim his affianced Bride, the Church, and St John is

content with the humble, the almost undignified role of what we call the “best

man“. It is for him to sink his own claims, his own personality, and rejoice in the

triumph of the Lamb of God. No one has ever stood in the background more

loyally.

3 University Sermons by Msgr. Ronald A. Knox, Palm Publishers, 1963, pp. 346-347.7