NOTES for Sir 48:1-4

"Blessed are those who saw you and were adorned with love"... Jesus, son of Sirach, says this about Elijah. And it turns out that this "adorning with love" is somehow connected with communion with the prophet. This happens, surely, with all the saints: everyone who communes with them - of course, those who come with an open heart - is himself lit up a little by the reflection of their love. A saint adorns with his love those who come to him - and in this way leads them to God...

John the Baptist was always just a little ahead of Jesus. He was born six months earlier and, apparently, died the same six months earlier. It is as though, through his own—strange as it may sound—simpler example, he constantly teaches us to understand all that is impossible for a human being to comprehend. What preceded his birth can easily be called a miracle, but how incomparable it is with the Annunciation and the Nativity! He was the first to greet the Virgin and the Child She was carrying. Each time, everything he says means only one thing for us: look, it is so simple to recognize, accept, worship, and serve Jesus. The constant nearness of the holy and incomprehensible compelled him to be an ascetic and a spiritual struggler, as we would call it today. Not because God required it, but because he was, like us, a sinful human being.