Book of Days

All of our midsummer night’s revels and midsummer night’s dreaming of last night lead up to today: St. John’s Day, marking the birth of St. John the Baptist. We don’t typically celebrate the births of saints; all the other saints’ days mark the date of their deaths. But things are different with Mary and with John the Baptist. For them, we celebrate both. The Church early on placed the birth of John the Baptist at the Midsummer solstice and the birth of Jesus Christ at the Midwinter solstice. John is born at Midsummer, just as light begins to decrease. “He must increase, but I must decrease,” we read in John 3:30. Conversely, Christ is born at Midwinter, just as light begins to increase. Again, in John 8:12: “I am the light of the world.”

St. John is sacred to Puerto Rico, Québec, and Newfoundland. He is a patron saint of tailors, innkeepers, and printers like me. Tradition would have us cut and fashion divining rods on his day, for hidden treasures are thought to reveal themselves on St. John’s Day. Explore lonely places, it is said, and there these treasures shall be, awaiting any lucky finder. The magic passes with the day.

It is customary to eat strawberries on St. John’s Day, and in Estonia and Finland, a special St. John’s Day cheese is made, flavored with caraway seeds. Luckily no one has made a tradition of eating the foods that St. John himself is known to have eaten: “And his meat was locusts and wild honey” (Matthew 3:4). Try serving that at your next Midsummer dinner and watch your guests clear out in a hurry.

Image: Our St. John’s Eve bonfire last night, welcoming Old Midsummer. There may have been some Cognac involved. Afterward, I bound a pile of books and then cobbled together this Book of Days chapter. That may have been a result of the coffee before the cognac. The pile of books? Copies of Putting Up Mangoes, our tale of overwhelming subtropical abundance, which we’ll be featuring at the Midsummer Makers Marketplace at the Jaffe Center for Book Arts tomorrow, Saturday June 25, from 10 AM to 4 PM. If you come by, do say hello. Follow the roadsigns on campus to easy free parking. Admission is free, too!

Solstice celebrations have a long history… all the way back to prehistory, in fact. And you can count on things like this, handed down through the generations, to be fiercely protected. And so it was with people and the early Church as entire empires and city-states began converting to Christianity in those formative years. Old ways persisted a long time and still do, but the early Church opted to rededicate many of these celebrations. The Church placed the birth of Jesus Christ at the winter solstice and the birth of John the Baptist, who prepared his way, at the summer solstice, keeping those solstice celebrations in place but repurposing them to the celebrations we honor today.

Consider the imagery: John is born at Midsummer, just as light begins to decrease. “He must increase, but I must decrease,” we read in John 3:30. Conversely, Christ is born at Midwinter, just as light begins to increase. Again, in John 8:12: “I am the light of the world.” No one knows for sure the exact dates of birth of these two historical figures, but the Church knew what it was doing when it chose these dates, there’s no doubt. The message is a powerful one, especially when you go back to simpler times, before electricity: We were much more attuned to the patterns of increasing and decreasing sunlight in the past.

Most of the Midsummer traditions have to do with St. John’s Eve, which was last night. Still, one tradition is to cut divining rods on this day. Hidden treasures are also thought to reveal themselves on St. John’s Day (perhaps St. Anthony’s influence from earlier in the month?). Explore lonely places, it is said, and there these treasures shall be, awaiting any lucky finder. The magic passes with the day.

St. John the Baptist is unusual in that he is the only saint for which we celebrate his birth (today) in addition to his death (August 29). So you’ll see his name come around again in late summer. St. John is sacred to Puerto Rico, Québec and Newfoundland. He is a patron saint of tailors, innkeepers, and printers like me. It is customary to eat strawberries on his feast day, and in Estonia and Finland, a special St. John’s Day cheese is made, flavored with caraway seeds. Luckily no one has made a tradition of eating the foods that St. John himself is known to have eaten: “And his meat was locusts and wild honey” (Matthew 3:4). Try serving that at your next Midsummer dinner and watch your guests clear out in a hurry.

As with Christmas at the opposite solstice, it is the eve of the feast that is charged with more magic and mystery. And especially so with St. John’s Eve. The fires of people across the planet were blazing last night, lighting the midsummer night, calling down the power of the sun, marking our celebrations across time and geography.

Image: St. John the Baptist by Leonardo DaVinci [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.