24th of June - St John the Baptist Day
24th of June is the 175th day of the year
St John the Baptist Day:
John the Baptist played a major role in the very earliest days of the Christian church, his foretelling the arrival of a messiah (noted in all the four gospels) in fact pre-dating the church of course. He also identified Jesus as that messiah, and baptized him in the Jordan. June 24th as the supposed date of his birth is his feast day, with another feast day dedicated to him on the day he was beheaded at the behest of Salome – August 29th - that story much retold by authors including Oscar Wilde. John is also revered as a prophet in Islam.
The feast day for John the Baptist, because it falls on midsummer’s day, was in past times associated with many festivals of probable non-Christian origin, bonfires and torch processions among them. The church at Tenterden in Kent once held, or was said to, John’s severed head (one of a multitude of claimants to that relic), but the object was lost in the Reformation.
Choose another day:
Brit Quote: |
|
On this day: |