St. Irenaeus Ministries

Starting at Luke 1:5, this session focuses on the man God destined to "prepare the way of the Lord," John the Baptist (Is 40:3). He is the long-awaited son of the Zechariah the priest of Abijah and the barren Elizabeth, an elderly couple who were "blameless before the Lord, following all this commandments and ordinances" (Lk 1:6) The so-called "Little Annunciation" refers to Luke 1:8-22, when the Archangel Gabriel appears to Zechariah in the Temple and announces that Elizabeth will conceive of John. As he towers over Zechariah before the Altar of Insence, Gabriel proclaims that John will not only be a Nazirite who lives according to the ordinances of Numbers 6, but he will "be filled with the Holy Spirit" from his mother's womb and will fulfil the prophecies of the end of the Book of Malachi and Sirach 48:10. Moreover, he will "turn many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before Him in the spirit of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to th