What, then, will this child be?

It has been said that God may not seem to answer our prayers, at times, because he is actually waiting for the right time to do so. As it is also said in Ecclesiastes, there is a time, a right time, for everything.

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We just have to wait and trust that God is not “sleeping” or uninvolved.

The Birth of John the Baptist whose solemnity we celebrate today is a reminder that God is gracious and that this graciousness can at times be surprisingly extraordinary. We know how Zechariah and Elizabeth were childless even unto their old age. But then, when the right hour came, when God's plan was ripe, he gifted this old couple with a child in the person of John whose primary and almost exclusive mission was to call people to repentance and baptism for the forgiveness of sins, especially in preparation for the coming Messiah whose way John was to prepare.