Raise Up Heroes, Lord!

John the Baptist said to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” Mark 6:18

Today is the Feast Day of the Passion of Saint John the Baptist, a fitting day to ask God to raise up heroes in our country. Let us pray that He would embolden and enlighten ordinary men and women like us who would be unafraid to speak His truth and bring His light into the world. Here is the first reading for today, Jeremiah 1:17-19: "For it is I this day who have made you a fortified city, a pillar of iron, a wall of brass, against the whole land:...They will fight against you, but not prevail over you, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord." 

The Gospel in Mark is about John the Baptist and how he was unafraid to speak the truth even when Herod was a powerful man and a despot who liked to get his own way. Herod was brash and liked to show off, promising the young daughter of his mistress Herodias that she could ask anything from him after a dance that pleased him. After a consult with her mother, she asked for the head of John the Baptist. John was beheaded. 

Did that silence John the Baptist? Many would say yes. But I believe he lived on in the consciences of many, including Herod himself, who I am sure, was haunted by the voice and the words of the man. In Mark 6:16, Herod thought John had come back from the dead in the person of Jesus Christ! And he was not the only one. Many said of Jesus: "This must be John the Baptist come back to life again!"

The truth will prevail and the truth will not die. Let us pray for heroes. Each one of us must be a hero. We have a calling to be prophets for our time. In Esther 4:14, the Queen Esther was called to task by her uncle Mordecai. "For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”