Today, June 24, is St. John the Baptist celebrated or the Sacred Heart of Jesus?

Today, June 24, is St. John the Baptist celebrated or the Sacred Heart of Jesus?

Amalfi, Sigismondo Nastri talks about the traditions, rites and superstitions related to the feast of St. John the Baptist

The feast of St. John is marked on the calendar, and in some countries everything is ready to celebrate according to their own traditions: bonfires, traditional foods …

However, this year the date coincides with the solemnity of Sacred Heartto which the liturgy gives priority, so the Mass commemorating the Baptist’s birth go to the next day, Saturday 25th, or to the previous day, Thursday 23rd.

The great celebration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is variable. Catholics remember it on the Friday following the feast of The body of the Lordbecause on a day like this Santa Margherita Maria Alacoquand she had a vision in which Jesus asked her that “on the first Friday after the octave of the Blessed Sacrament” a special feast should be dedicated to glorify His Heart.

Liturgically, the Church gives more importance to the feast of the Sacred Heart than to that of the birth of St. John the Baptist. It is a solemnity, the highest degree of liturgical feast.

However, the birth of Jesus’ cousin is also a solemnity, one of the only three births that the Catholic Church has venerated since time immemorial, along with that of Christ and that of the Virgin Mary.