Luke 1:13

Thy prayer is heard. Not his prayer for offspring, S. Augustine says, of which he now so despaired that he did not believe the promise of the angel (verse 20), but thy prayer as a priest for the sins of the people and for the coming of the Messiah. But God, who goes beyond the merits and the prayers of suppliants, promised him a son who should be the prophet and forerunner. So Bede, Theophylact, S. Augustine, S. Chrysostom.

Some, however, are of opinion that this prayer of Zacharias was for offspring, only that it had been offered not at this time, but formerly when he was younger.

Thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. Because John, according to Maldonatus, is the same in Hebrew as beloved : or, according to Pagninus, the gift of mercy of the Lord. This is not, however, the precise meaning; for then he would have rather been called Hananiah than John. Properly, therefore, the name John signifies, God hath had merey. And He did this first when He heard the prayer of Zacharias; and secondly by appointing John as the forerunner of the Messiah, and soon after by sending the Messiah Himself; for it was by Christ, and not by Moses and the law, that grace came. So the son of Anna was called Samuel, that is asked and obtained from God by the tears of his mother for the salvation of the whole people, 1 Samuel 1:20. Thirdly, God also showed mercy on John himself (Bede, Jansen, Maldonatus), by filling him with His manifold grace, by which He made him a Doctor in Israel, a Prophet, an Anchorite, a Martyr, a Virgin, and the Forerunner of Christ. John therefore was, as it were, the Son of Charities and Graces, in whom all the Graces of God seem to have blended together.

Mark here the threefold mystery of the three names: for Elizabeth, that is, the oath of God who promiseth, and Zacharias, God's remembrance of His promise, are the parents of John, that is, the mercy and grace of God.