The particular circumstances of John's birth have been handed down to us by the evangelist Luke. According to an ancient tradition, it took place in Ain-Karim, before the gates of Jerusalem. The circumstances surrounding this birth were so unusual that even at that time people were asking: "What is this child to be?" (Lk 1:66). It was evident to his believing parents, neighbours and relatives that his birth was a sign from God. They clearly saw that the "hand of the Lord" was upon him. This was already demonstrated by the announcement of his birth to his father Zechariah, while he was providing priestly service in the temple in Jerusalem. His mother, Elisabeth, was already advanced in years and was thought to be barren. Even the name 'John' he was given was unusual for his environment. His father himself had to give orders that he be called "John" and not, as everyone else wanted, "Zechariah" (cf. Lk 1:59-63).

The name John means in the Hebrew language "God is merciful". Thus already in the name is expressed the fact that the newborn child would one day announce God's plan of salvation.

The future would fully confirm the predictions and events surrounding his birth: John, son of Zechariah and Elisabeth, became the "voice of one crying out in the wilderness" (Matt 3:3), who on the banks of the Jordan called people to penance and prepared the way for Christ.

Christ himself said of John the Baptist that "among those born of women no greater one has arisen" (cf. Mt 11:11). That is why the Church has also reserved a special veneration for this great messenger of God from the very beginning. An expression of this veneration is today's feast.

4. Dear brothers and sisters! This celebration, with its liturgical texts, invites us to reflect on the question of man's becoming, his origins and his destination. True, we already seem to know a great deal about this subject, both from mankind's long experience and from ever more in-depth biomedical research. But it is the word of God that always re-establishes the essential dimension of the truth about man: man is created by God and willed by God in his image and likeness. No purely human science can demonstrate this truth. At most it can come close to this truth or intuitively surmise the truth about this 'unknown being' that is man from the moment of his conception in the womb.

At the same time, however, we find ourselves witnessing how, in the name of a supposed science, man is 'reduced' in a dramatic trial and represented in a sad simplification; and so it happens that even those rights that are based on the dignity of his person, which distinguishes him from all the other creatures of the visible world, are overshadowed. Those words from the book of Genesis, which speak of man as the creature created in the image and likeness of God, highlight, in a concise yet profound way, the full truth about him.

5. We can also learn this truth about man from today's liturgy, in which the Church prays to God, the creator, in the words of the psalmist:

"Lord, you scrutinise me and know me . . . 

It is you who created my bowels 

and wove me in my mother's womb . . . 

you know me to the depths. 

When I was formed in secret . . . 

my bones were not hidden from you . . . 

I praise thee, for thou hast made me as a prodigy' (Ps 139 [138], 1. 13-15).

Man therefore is aware of what he is - of what he is from the beginning, from the womb. He knows that he is a creature that God wants to meet and with whom he wants to dialogue. What is more: in man, he wants to meet the whole of creation.

For God, man is a 'someone': unique and unrepeatable. He, as the Second Vatican Council says, "on earth is the only creature that God willed for itself" (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 24).

"The Lord from my mother's womb has called me; from my mother's womb he has pronounced my name" (Is 49:1); like the name of the child who was born in Ain-Karim: "John". Man is that being whom God calls by name. For God he is the created 'you', of all creatures he is that personal 'I', who can address God and call him by name. God wants that partner in man who addresses him as his own creator and Father: 'You, my Lord and my God'. To the divine "you".

6. Dear brothers and sisters! How do we men respond to this call of God? How does the man of today understand his life? In no other age have so many efforts been made through technology and medicine to safeguard human life against disease, to prolong it ever longer and to save it from death. At the same time, however, no other age has produced so many places and so many methods of contempt and destruction of man as ours. The bitter experiences of our century with the death machines of two world wars, the persecution and destruction of entire groups of men because of their ethnic or religious affiliation, the atomic arms race to the extreme, the helplessness of men in the face of great misery in many parts of the earth may lead us to doubt, if not even to deny, God's affection and love for man and for the whole of creation.

Or is it not rather the case that we should ask ourselves the question in reverse, when we consider the terrible events that have befallen the world because of mankind, and in the face of the manifold threats of our time: has man not turned away from God, who is his origin, and raised himself up as the centre and standard of his own life? Do you not think that in the experiments being conducted on man, experiments that contradict his dignity, in the mental attitude of many towards abortion and euthanasia, a worrying loss of respect for life is expressed? Is it not evident, even in your society, when one looks at the lives of many - characterised by inner emptiness, fear and flight - that man himself has severed his roots? Are not sex, alcohol and drugs to be understood as warning signals? Do they not indicate, perhaps, a great loneliness in today's man, a longing for care, a hunger for love that a world turned in on itself cannot quench?

In fact, when man is no longer connected to his root, which is God, he becomes impoverished of inner values and gradually becomes subservient to various threats. History teaches us that men and peoples who believe they can exist without God are invariably doomed to the catastrophe of self-destruction. The poet Ernst Wiechert expressed it in this sentence: 'Be assured that no one will fall out of this world who has not first fallen out of God'.

On the contrary, from a living relationship with God, man acquires an awareness of the uniqueness and value of his own life and personal consciousness. In his concretely lived life, he knows that he is called, supported and spurred on by God. Despite injustice and personal suffering, he understands that his life is a gift; he is grateful for it and knows that he is responsible for it before God. In this way, God becomes for man a source of strength and confidence, and at this source man can make his life worthy and also know how to generously put it at the service of his brothers and sisters.

7. God called John the Baptist already "in the womb" so that he might become "the voice of one crying out in the wilderness" and thus prepare the way for his Son. In a very similar way, God has also "laid his hand" on each one of us. For each of us he has a particular call, each of us is entrusted with a task designed by him for us.

In each call, which may come to us in the most diverse way, we hear that divine voice, which then spoke through John: "Prepare the way of the Lord!" (Matt 3:3).

Every man should ask himself in what way he can contribute within the scope of his work and position, to open the way for God in this world. Every time we open ourselves to God's call, we prepare, like John, the way of the Lord among men.

[Pope John Paul II, 24 June 1988]