(New Testament)

Feast Day - December 27th

    THE apostle who lived the longest, the one who was dearly beloved by Jesus, and the only one of the Twelve who certainly did not die as a martyr, Saint John was given a very special part in the drama of the Redemption. The son of Salome and Zebedee, a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee, he was probably born at Bethsaida, where he and his brother, James the Greater, followed their father's occupation. He was apparently an early disciple of Saint John the Baptist, and it was he who accompanied Saint Andrew when the latter left the Baptist to follow Christ.

The Master soon gave the brothers John and James the nickname Boanerges, meaning "sons of thunder," but whether He gave it as a compliment to their ardent characters or for some violence of temperament is uncertain. The two Boanerges, with Saint Peter, formed the "inner circle" of the group around Jesus; these three alone were chosen to be present at the Transfiguration and to accompany Jesus to Gethsemani on the eve of His death.

But John also retained a place of his own beside the Master-a fact more clearly brought out in the story of the Passion. At the Last Supper he lay on his couch at the table with his head pressed close to the breast of Jesus, and he was almost certainly that "other disciple" who went with Peter later that evening to the house of Caiphas, after our Lord had been brought there for questioning, and who, being known to the high priest, was allowed to enter the house while Peter remained in the courtyard. Finally, it was John alone of the apostles who was present at the foot of the cross and, in one of the Gospels' most touching scenes, received from the Crucified the commission to watch over the Virgin Mother. At that moment of His death, Jesus gave Mary, through Saint John the Evangelist, to the whole of humanity as its Mother.

On the morning of the Resurrection, John and Peter raced to the sepulcher after being told by Mary Magdalene that the Lord's body had disappeared from the tomb. John, the younger of the two, outdistanced Peter, but when he arrived at the tomb he stood aside to let the chief of the apostles enter first and make the actual inspection of the place. "Then," as Saint John himself relates in his Gospel, "the other disciple also went in . . . And he saw and believed."

Before ascending into heaven, Jesus foretold that Peter would be crucified, and Peter, pointing at John, asked the Master what would happen to that disciple. Jesus' answer-- "If I wish him to remain until I come, what is it to thee?" --was interpreted by many of the Christian brethern as a promise that John would remain alive until the final coming of the Lord. But in his Gospel, John himself points out that the Lord did not say exactly that John would not die, but that it was no concern of Peter's what became of John as long as he, Peter, remained faithful.

As a matter of fact, John's exceedingly long life (he is said to have been more than a hundred when he died) seemed to give weight to the belief that he would never die. We read of him frequently in the Acts of the Apostles, where he was involved in the most important of the apostolic decisions and was a leader of the Christian community at Jerusalem. Perhaps soon after the Council of Jerusalem, which took place about the year 51, he left Palestine for Asia Minor, where for most of his later life he made his home. As the protector and foster son of the Mother of God, he would have taken her with him. The Fathers of the Church have embroidered greatly on the relationship of these two and have glowingly described their deep love and harmony.

Saint Irenaeus says that John settled at Ephesus only after the martyrdom of Saints Peter and Paul, but how soon afterward nobody seems to know. A tradition states that he was taken to Rome during the reign of Domitian, where he was miraculously saved from martyrdom, and that he was then banished to the island of Patmos. It is certain that he composed the Apocalypse on Patmos, where he received the visions which that book describes. In the year 96, when Domitian was dead, he was able to return to Ephesus, and it is believed that he was there when he wrote his Gospel.

The Fourth Gospel is strikingly different from the Gospels of the other evangelists. Saint John evidently intended to supplement rather than repeat the information contained in the other accounts, and he relates events in Jesus' life which appear nowhere else. In none of the other Gospels is the personality of our Lord so beautifully set forth. Yet John, with quiet humility, refrained therein from referring to himself by name; he is most often referred to simply as the "beloved disciple."

It is Christian charity, propounded through all of his writings, that is John's central doctrine ' His works, especially his Epistles, return to that theme continually. His close union with Jesus, his abiding love for Him, and his intimacy with Mary are all reflected there, burning incessantly, unquenchably, for the moment of love's final consummation in heaven.