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New Zealand Tablet, 19 June 1919, Page 23

St. Augustine remarks that, while the Church celebrates the feasts of other saints on the day of their death, as being that of their entrance into eternal. life she keeps as a festival the day of St. John the Baptist's birth, because he came into the world, not as a sinner, but: as a saint, having been sanctified in his mother's womb by Our Blessed Lord. Of St, John the angel foretold, -"He shall be great before the Lord and shall drink no wine nor strong drink, and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost. even from his mother's womb. And he shall convert many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. And he shall go before them in the spirit and power of Elias ... to prepare unto the Lord a perfect people." The Son of God, speaking of St. ; John the Baptist, says:— 'There hath not risen among : them that are born of women a greater "than John the Baptist." :: ->