{"id":4045,"date":"2025-06-24T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/?p=4045"},"modified":"2025-06-23T17:05:55","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T17:05:55","slug":"marked-by-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/2025\/06\/24\/marked-by-god\/benedictine-spirituality\/4045\/","title":{"rendered":"Marked by God"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo by Lars Kuczynski on unsplash.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Today we\u2019re celebrating the birth of St John the Baptist, prophet and precursor of Christ. His role is central to the gospel. He is called to prepare the hearts of the people for the coming of the Messiah, and to point him out to others when he appears.

He is also at the heart of his Jewish faith, both his parents can trace their heritage back through the history of the people of Israel. His father, Zechariah, is a priest. These are good and faithful people, living out the covenant and waiting in hope for the coming of the Messiah.


This might make him seem like the ultimate insider, yet from the beginning it\u2019s clear that John is to perform this role from the fringes. He is always to be an outsider, a presence that challenges people and makes them uncomfortable.

From the beginning he is marked out. He\u2019s born to parents long past childbearing. His birth was announced to his unbelieving father by an angel. Zechariah\u2019s doubt leaves him without speech until after John\u2019s birth. The angel tells Zechariah:

“Even from his mother\u2019s womb he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, and he will bring back many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. With the spirit and power of Elijah, he will go before him to turn the hearts of fathers towards their children and the disobedient back to the wisdom that the virtuous have, preparing for the Lord a people fit for him.”<\/em>

The angel\u2019s words are full of hope and promise. Yet, they also carry a challenge. John\u2019s call put him at odds with his times, constantly compelling him to challenge his people to make the changes necessary to prepare their hearts to welcome Christ. That challenge is just as relevant to us today as it was when John first preached.

Where are you being challenged to prepare your heart to welcome Christ today?
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Today we\u2019re celebrating the birth of St John the Baptist, prophet and precursor of Christ. His role is central to the gospel. He is called to prepare the hearts of the people for the coming of the Messiah, and to point him out to others when he appears. He is also at the heart of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,494,239,388,400,271,537,286,245,246],"tags":[28,18,53,223,6,166,8,33,229,13,29,137,15,114,302,414,10],"class_list":["post-4045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-benedictine-spirituality","category-christ","category-gospel","category-holy-spirit","category-john-the-baptist","category-lectio-divina","category-liturgy","category-prophetic-voices","category-saints","category-scripture","tag-benedictine","tag-challenge","tag-christ","tag-christlike","tag-gospel","tag-holyspirit","tag-hope","tag-kingdom","tag-kingdomvalues","tag-lectiodivina","tag-love","tag-messiah","tag-newlife","tag-prophet","tag-prophetic","tag-stjohnthebaptist","tag-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4045"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4051,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4045\/revisions\/4051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}