Commemorations for Paona 30 On this day, the church celebrates
the nativity of St. John the Baptist. He whom none born of women
was greater. He who kneeled to the Lord Christ while he was
still in his mother's womb, and was worthy to lay his hand upon
the head of the Son of God during Baptism. The Holy Bible said
about him: "Now Elizabeth's full time came for her to be
delivered, and she brought forth a son. When her neighbors and
relatives heard how the Lord had shown great mercy to her, they
rejoiced with her. Now so it was, on the eighth day, that they
came to circumcise the child; and they would have called him by
the name of his father, Zacharias. And his mother answered and
said, 'No; he shall be called John.' But they said to her,
'There is no one among your relatives who is called by this
name.' So they made signs to his father; what he would have him
called. And he asked for a writing tablet, and wrote, saying,
'His name is John.' And they all marveled. Immediately his mouth
was opened and his tongue