8 January 2027 · Syro-Malabar Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Latin Rite · Syro-Malankara Rite · മലയാളം
“The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.” Isaiah 40:8
On the Fridays of Denha the Church honours the great witnesses who made Christ known. The first is John the Baptist, who saw the heavens open over Jesus at the Jordan. Isaiah had foretold his mission: a voice crying in the wilderness to prepare the way of the Lord, so that “the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together.” In the synagogue of Antioch in Pisidia St Paul tells the whole story of Israel, from Egypt to David, and then names the forerunner: “before his coming John had already proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.” And John himself said: “I am not he. No, but one is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of the sandals on his feet.”
John paid for his witness with his life. He told Herod plainly: “It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.” Herod feared him, “knowing that he was a righteous and holy man”, and even liked to listen to him; but at a birthday banquet, out of regard for his oaths and his guests, he sent a soldier to behead him in prison. Herod's power withered like grass; John's witness still speaks. “The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.” St Paul, himself “a prisoner for Christ Jesus”, shows what such witness builds: a household in which strangers become “citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.” John, the last of the prophets, belongs to that foundation. The question he leaves us is simple: will I speak the truth with love, whatever it costs?
Theme: “The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.”
John the Baptist: the voice, the witness, the martyr.
“A voice cries out: In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” Isaiah 40:3
“before his coming John had already proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.” Acts 13:24
Apply: Make one thing straight in your life this week: a confession, an apology, a debt repaid.
“I will also speak of your decrees before kings, and shall not be put to shame.” Psalm 119:46
“For John had been telling Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.”” Mark 6:18
Apply: Speak one hard truth this week, gently and with love.
“The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.” Psalm 118:22
“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.” Ephesians 2:19–20
Apply: Pray each day this week for the persecuted Church.
Herod's power withered; John's witness still speaks.
Truth with love, built on Christ the cornerstone.
Take-home resolution: Speak one hard truth this week, gently and with love.
Dear friends, on the Fridays of Denha the Church remembers the witnesses of Christ. Today we honour John the Baptist, who saw the heavens open at the Jordan. Long before, Isaiah had heard a voice crying: in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord (Isaiah 40:3). John was that voice.
In Antioch St Paul tells the story of Israel, from Egypt to King David, and then says: before the coming of Jesus, John proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people. And John said: I am not he; one is coming after me, and I am not worthy to untie his sandals (Acts 13:24–25). The greatness of John is that he points away from himself.
John told Herod: it is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife (Mark 6:18). Herod knew that John was a righteous and holy man, and even liked to listen to him. But at his birthday banquet, to keep a rash oath and to save face before his guests, he had John beheaded in prison. Truth spoken with love can be costly.
Where is Herod's power now? The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever (Isaiah 40:8). St Paul, writing as a prisoner for Christ, tells us that we are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20). John's witness, sealed in blood, is part of that foundation.
Let us ask for John's humility, to point always to Christ, and for his courage, to speak the truth with love. And let us pray for Christians who today are imprisoned or killed for their faith. Amen.
Children, John the Baptist was very brave. He told the king the truth even when it was dangerous. Let us always tell the truth, kindly and bravely.
O God, you sent John the Baptist to prepare the way of your Son and to bear witness to the truth even to death. Give us his humility, to point always to Christ, and his courage, to speak the truth with love; and build us with all your saints into a dwelling place for you. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
On the Fridays of Denha the Church honours the great witnesses who made Christ known, and the first of them is John the Baptist. Each reading gives one side of his witness. Isaiah supplies the voice in the wilderness that the Gospels hear in John. Paul, preaching in a synagogue, places John at the turning point of Israel's story. Ephesians, in Paul's voice from prison, shows what such witness builds: a household resting on apostles and prophets, with Christ as cornerstone. Mark tells the price: a prison, a banquet, a sword and a tomb. The line runs from a voice, to a story, to a house, to a martyr, and its key words are word, witness and foundation.
Setting.
Chapters 40–55 of Isaiah, often called the Book of Consolation, speak to the people exiled in Babylon, in the years before Cyrus allowed them to return (539 BC). Many scholars think that a prophet of the exile, in the school of Isaiah, gave these oracles; the Church receives them as one book of Scripture. The great empire looks permanent and the promise looks dead. These eight verses are the opening of a new message: the sentence is served, and God is coming home with his people.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.” (40:1)
“My people” and “your God” are the words of the covenant. The exile has not cancelled them.
“A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” (40:3)
A note on the text. In the Hebrew, as the NRSV sets it out, the road is prepared in the wilderness. The Greek Old Testament can be read so that the voice itself is in the wilderness, and that is the form the Gospels quote (Mark 1:3; John 1:23). John, preaching in the desert, fits it perfectly. The picture is of the great processional roads of Babylon, but this road is for the God of a defeated people.
“All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field.” (40:6)
The prophet's first response is discouragement: what is there to say about creatures who fade? The answer takes in the mighty as well. Herod, in today's Gospel, is grass too.
“The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.” (40:8)
This is the centre of the reading. 1 Peter 1:24–25 quotes it and adds that this word is the good news preached to us. John dies, and Herod's rule ends; the word John served remains.
How the Church reads it.
All four Gospels apply this passage to John the Baptist (Matthew 3:3; Mark 1:3; Luke 3:4–6; John 1:23). The Catechism calls John the Lord's immediate forerunner, the last of the prophets, who bears witness to Christ by his preaching, by his baptism of conversion and finally by his martyrdom (CCC 523; see also 719). St Augustine liked to draw the contrast: John is the voice, which passes, and Christ is the Word, who remains (in substance). Every preacher and catechist stands in that place: a voice that serves a Word greater than itself.
Setting.
On their first missionary journey Paul and Barnabas reach Antioch in Pisidia, in the south of Asia Minor. It is not the great Antioch in Syria. On the sabbath they go to the synagogue, and after the reading of the law and the prophets the officials invite them to give “any word of exhortation” (13:15). This is the first long sermon of Paul that Acts reports. He speaks as a Jew to fellow Jews and to devout Gentiles, and he calls them “brothers”. The promise is “our” story.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“For about forty years he put up with them in the wilderness.” (13:18)
A note on the text. Greek manuscripts differ here by one letter. One reading says God “put up with” them, which the NRSV and the POC follow. The other says he “cared for” them, as a nurse carries a child (compare Deuteronomy 1:31). Both are true of God in the desert.
“Of this man’s posterity God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised;” (13:23)
All the earlier history leads here. God's fidelity to his promise is the thread of Paul's sermon; David is named so that the promise to David can be recalled.
“before his coming John had already proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.” (13:24)
Far from Galilee, years after his death, John is already part of the Christian message. The Church's preaching of Jesus begins from John's baptism (Acts 1:22; 10:37).
“What do you suppose that I am? I am not he. No, but one is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of the sandals on his feet.” (13:25)
Untying sandals was a slave's task. John's whole greatness lies in knowing who he is not (compare John 1:20).
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism teaches that the coming of God's Son was prepared over many centuries, and that John, the last of those who prepared the way, sums up that long preparation (CCC 522–523). Paul's sermon is a model for the Church's teaching: it does not begin with an idea but with a history, in which God has kept faith with a people. The Church honours that people still, for from them comes the Christ according to the flesh (Romans 9:4–5; CCC 839).
Setting.
The letter comes in Paul's name, from prison (3:1). Many scholars think a close disciple wrote it in his name after his death; others hold that Paul himself wrote it. Either way the Church receives it as the inspired word of God. Its great theme is the unity in Christ of Jews and Gentiles. The reading joins the end of chapter 2 to the beginning of chapter 3: first the house, then the prisoner who serves it.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God,” (2:19)
The move is from a legal status to a family. A stranger may be tolerated, but a member of the household has a place at the table.
“built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.” (2:20)
The prophets are probably those of the early Church, since 3:5 names them with the apostles as receiving the revelation now. Yet John, the last of the old prophets, prepared the ground on which this foundation was laid.
“This is the reason that I Paul am a prisoner for Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles” (3:1)
Today the letter's prisoner stands beside the prisoner in the Gospel. A jail does not stop the building; it often serves it.
“that is, the Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” (3:6)
The Gentiles join a promise already given. They do not replace those who received it first.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism gathers the images of this passage: the Church is God's building, resting on the apostles, with Christ as its stone (CCC 756), and she remains built on the foundation of the apostles (CCC 857). The Second Vatican Council teaches that the Church is one people drawn from Jews and Gentiles, called together in Christ (Lumen Gentium 9). To call the Church apostolic means that our faith does not float; it stands on witnesses who gave their lives.
Setting.
Mark places this story between the sending out of the Twelve (6:7–13) and their return (6:30). While the disciples go out to preach, we are told what can happen to a preacher. It is the only story in Mark that is not directly about Jesus, and it is told as a flashback, when Herod hears of Jesus and fears that John has come back.
The “King Herod” here is Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great. Rome gave him only the title of tetrarch of Galilee and Perea (compare Matthew 14:1). Josephus, the Jewish historian, also reports John's death: he says that Herod feared John's influence over the people and had him killed at the fortress of Machaerus, east of the Dead Sea (Antiquities 18). The two accounts give different sides of the event and do not need to exclude each other.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“For John had been telling Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.”” (6:18)
The verb suggests he said it repeatedly. The Law forbade this marriage (Leviticus 18:16; 20:21). John did not soften God's word for a ruler.
“for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him.” (6:20)
A striking picture of a divided heart: someone can enjoy a good preacher for years and never change.
“And he solemnly swore to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.”” (6:23)
The words echo Esther 5:3. There is irony here: Herod has no kingdom of his own to give. Josephus reports that he was later banished by Rome after seeking the title of king.
“The king was deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her.” (6:26)
He fears losing face more than he fears doing evil. A man with soldiers is ruled by what his dinner guests will think.
“When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.” (6:29)
The story ends without a miracle. Nothing suggests that God has failed; the reader knows what is coming for Jesus, and what comes after his tomb.
How the Church reads it.
St John Paul II names John among those who refused to compromise with evil and gave their lives in witness to truth and justice, and says that he so became the forerunner of the Messiah in the way he died (Veritatis Splendor 91). The Catechism calls martyrdom the supreme witness to the truth of the faith (CCC 2473). St Bede observes that John was not asked to deny Christ, but he died for justice and truth, and Christ is the truth; so he died for Christ (in substance).
Why does Mark call Herodias's first husband Philip, when Josephus calls him Herod?
It is a real difficulty. Josephus names her first husband as a Herod, and speaks of a Philip as the husband of Salome, her daughter. Some suggest that the man bore both names; others that Mark's tradition confused members of a family in which names were often repeated. The point of the story, John's witness to God's law, is not affected.
Why did Herod feel bound by his oath?
Mark presents this as weakness, not as piety. An oath does not make a grave wrong right. Herod's real motive is shown in the words “for the guests”.
Who was the girl who danced?
The NRSV follows manuscripts that say “his daughter Herodias”; other manuscripts say the daughter of Herodias herself, as the POC's “her daughter” does. Josephus names Herodias's daughter as Salome, and tradition has taken that name from him, though Mark does not give it.
In the Syro-Malabar calendar the Fridays of Denha are given to the witnesses of the Lord, and John rightly comes first: at the Jordan, which the Church has just celebrated, he saw the Spirit come down on the Lord (John 1:32). For our Church, built on the witness of the apostle Thomas, the reading from Ephesians speaks directly: we are members of the household because someone came and told the truth at a cost. The Holy Qurbana we offer today joins John's witness to the one sacrifice he foretold.