|The Child Jesus prepares his Precursor| The Nativity of St.
John the Baptist It is well known that most feast days
commemorate the day that the given saint died. Occasionally, the
feast will be on the day of the movement of the saints relics
(as in the case of Sts. Thomas Aquinas and St. Benedict,
according to the new calendar) or, for a pope, it will
occasionally happen that the feast will fall on the day of the
saints ascendance to the papacy (as in the case of Bl. John Paul
II). However, it is almost entirely unheard of that a saint’s
feast should commemorate his day of birth. The principle reason
why the feast day of a saint is (almost) never on his birthday
is that a saint is not born holy, but grows to spiritual
perfection through his life. There are, however, three important
exceptions to this rule: The Nativity of Jesus (i.e. Christmas),
the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and today’s feast of
the Nativity of St. John the Baptist. These three – Jesus, Mary,
and John the Baptist – are recognized