The Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

Saint John the Baptist is the only saint besides the Virgin Mary whose birth the Church celebrates with a solemnity. Saint Luke tells how the angel Gabriel appeared to the elderly priest Zechariah in the Temple and announced that his wife Elizabeth, long barren, would bear a son. Zechariah doubted and was left unable to speak. When Mary, carrying Jesus, visited Elizabeth, the child leapt for joy in her womb.

At the baby's circumcision the relatives wanted to call him Zechariah, but Elizabeth said he would be named John. Zechariah wrote, His name is John, and at once he could speak again and sang the Benedictus. The feast falls six months before Christmas, near the summer solstice, when days begin to shorten, recalling John's words about Christ: He must increase; I must decrease.

On the Noche de San Juan, the night of June 23, bonfires blaze across Spain, from the Hogueras of Alicante to the beaches of A Coruña and Barcelona. In Puerto Rico, whose capital and original name honor the Baptist, families go to the beach at midnight and walk backward into the sea for blessing and good luck. In Venezuela the drums of San Juan sound through Barlovento, and in Paraguay and Brazil the Festas Juninas fill the night with fire and music.

He is the patron of Puerto Rico and of French Canadians, who celebrate Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day in Quebec, and of Florence, Genoa and Turin in Italy.