JB and Seraphim

No, that's not the name of a rock group.  Rather, these are the biblical feature plus the saint-du-jour, for Tuesday in the week of Christmas I.  Who were they?

John's mother was in the line of Aaron, the prototypical high priest of Judaism.  Her husband Zechariah was a high priest in the Temple.  What that means is that their son John would have lived quite well, with access to the best of everything.  He would have received the best education the Levites could provide.  He would be automatically in line to be a high priest like his dad.  So, with major advantages in life, and well-versed in Scripture and Tradition, ready to step into the religious spotlight, what does John do?  He ends up in the desert, identifying with the great Isaiah, wearing animal skins, eating bugs, and issuing flaming condemnations of the Establishment. 

What was he thinking?  Obviously there was a call upon him for prophetic activity freed from the strictures of the religious establishment.  He had the courage and devotion to follow through on a religious call that will cost him his life, just as it did Jesus.  He will be known as the Baptiser, was apparently head of the Morning Dipper cult, and called everyone to repentance in light of the near inbreaking of the Kingdom. 

Seraphim of Sarov also left his old life behind to pursue a religious vocation.  In his case, he chose religious life in the most stringent Order of monks available at that time.  Those brothers completely fasted every Wednesday and Friday, and had a restricted diet on the other days.  Maybe because of that, Seraphim became ill, and maybe because of that saw visions.   In the event, his visions were quite real to him and led him, first to be priested, second to become a hermit.  In our tradition, he would be called a solitary.  [Perhaps you know Sister Ellen Finlay, one of our nuns, who runs the Saint John's Centre in Tulsa; she is a solitary.]  That means living alone, not in community as is customary for religious.  It doesn't means, however, no contact with others.

Seraphim lived in a cabin, woodworked for a living, grew his own food and cooked it, and took serious care of the critters outdoors.  He did not eat them, so was a vegetarian, I should think.  One day he was attacked by a crazy person with an axe.  That attack left him crippled, bent over; and thereafter he had a series of strokes.  With those developments, Seraphim turned to entertaining visitors and teaching them for a living.  His lessons always centred on one of three subjects: the following the promptings of the Holy Spirit, self-denial, or service.  He was a model of all those.  Unlike John the Baptiser, he was not martyred, but died a peaceful death.

Both of these servants of God model well the willingness to turn from comfort and certainty to a scary, unpredictable future, under the conviction of a call.  We must also so stand ready to serve.