BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey - ECPv6.16.2//NONSGML v1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-WR-CALNAME:Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-Robots-Tag:noindex
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:America/New_York
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20240310T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20241103T060000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20250309T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20251102T060000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20260308T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20261101T060000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250624
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20250625
DTSTAMP:20260525T165737
CREATED:20250621T213317Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250621T213317Z
UID:13613-1750723200-1750809599@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Vigils Reading - Nativity of St John the Baptist
DESCRIPTION:HE MUST INCREASE \nAND I MUST DECREASE \nBy Msgr. Ronald Knox3 \n◊◊◊ \nIn St John the Baptist you could almost say that the hatred of prominence \nwas born in him. Always we see St John is pointing\, always away from himself. \n“Behold the Lamb of God\, who takes away the sins of the world” – there\, don’t \nlook at me\, look at him; don’t ask who I am\, ask who he is. There comes one \nafter me\, who is greater than I\, the latches of whose shoe I am not worthy to \nloose. \nEveryone is crowded round St John\, everyone wanting to know who he is\, \nand he will let them see nothing but the finger that points to a greater than \nhimself\, let them hear nothing but the voice of the forerunner who preaches a \ngospel not his own. \nAnd gradually\, as our Lord more and more allowed this attention to be \ndirected towards himself\, he\, instead of his forerunner\, became the center of \ninterest. “The pupil is outstripping the master“\, people will have said; for I \nthink it’s fairly certain that our Lord\, at the opening of his ministry\, was \nregarded as the disciple of St John\, the man who had baptized him. And one by \none the little groups that listened to the Baptist on the rocky hills by Jordan \nmelted away\, and he knew that they had gone off to follow the new Teacher\, \nwho\, traveling from village to village\, was more easy of access. Perhaps they \neven thought that in so transferring their allegiance from the stern prophet of \nthe desert with his wild clothes and rough manner to the Friend of publicans \nand sinners\, they were taking an easier yoke upon themselves… \nThe followers of John became fewer\, the audiences of the Galilean \nProphet more numerous. And I want you to see that if St John had been a \nsmaller man\, if he had looked upon his winning popularity in the way in which \nyou and I would look upon such a thing if it were to happen to ourselves\, it \nwould have been impossible for him not to feel a pang of jealousy at having been \nobeyed so well\, at having been so successful in diverting attention from himself \nto his Master. “He might have left me just a little work to do\, just a few souls to \ndeal with; he might have given me some part to play in his mission“; it’s not \ndifficult to imagine St John feeling like that. \nBut that was not St John’s way. “He must increase\, and I must decrease“ \n\, so he assures the little band that still remain faithful to him\, as if it were the \nmost natural thing in the world. And again\, “The friend of the bridegroom\, who \nstands and hears him\, rejoices with joy because of the bridegroom’s voice“. \nOur Lord has come to claim his affianced Bride\, the Church\, and St John is \ncontent with the humble\, the almost undignified role of what we call the “best \nman“. It is for him to sink his own claims\, his own personality\, and rejoice in the \ntriumph of the Lamb of God. No one has ever stood in the background more \nloyally. \n  \n3 University Sermons by Msgr. Ronald A. Knox\, Palm Publishers\, 1963\, pp. 346-347.7
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/vigils-reading-nativity-of-st-john-the-baptist-3/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR