This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.
Today’s readings draw a beautiful parallel between the Old Testament Samson, and the New Testament precursor of the Lord, John the Baptist. They depict the announcement of each by an angel to his parents.
Later in life, the Baptist was described by Jesus as never surpassed by any man born of woman (cf. Mt. 11:11).
And indeed, if we take a look at the lives of Samson and John the Baptist, the parallels we find are those of a man of God characterized by an abundance of virility and strength, and even a sort of wildness representing that particular aspect of wildness found in the male nature: Samson never cut his hair, and John the Baptist lived in the wilds, off locusts and wild honey. Both men endured, in different ways, the most rugged of trials.
Samson, as he grows older, is gifted with superhuman strength. John the Baptist’s iron strength is shown by his resistance to Herod and bravery in the face of martyrdom.
John is described as the voice crying in the desert, “Make straight the way of the Lord.” (cf. Mk. 1:3) We imagine him almost single-handedly leveling mountains and straightening paths so that Jesus will find the ground prepared when He begins His ministry.
Both men, Samson and the Baptist, end up sacrificing their own lives to be faithful to their roles in salvation history.
God, the Creator of the male nature, loves that nature in all its fierceness, its striving, its strength, its determination, its competitiveness: In all its virility. To the man who embraces what God has created him to be, builds it up, and surrenders it in a complete gift of self in the service of Jesus Christ and the vocation to which he is called, belongs a choice role in God’s providential plan for history–whether he perceives the full glorious context of that role at every moment, or not.
Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Pray for the men in your life, and for your own manhood, if you are a man. Ask God for the gift, not of suppression of what makes you/them manly, but of its full upbuilding, and for the grace to gift a fully-formed man to the whole-hearted, loving service of the Lord and His people.
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