SAINT: St John the Apostle – 27 December
By Catherine Sheehan
St John the Apostle has the astounding honour of having been one of Jesus’ closest friends while he walked this earth. He was also the only one of the Twelve Apostles who had the faith and courage to stand steadfastly at the foot of the cross on Calvary as Jesus died an awful and humiliating death. He is believed to be the only Apostle who was not martyred.
Known as ‘the beloved’ disciple, John was the youngest of the Twelve Apostles and he authored several books of the New Testament – St John’s Gospel, three Letters, and Revelation.
John was a fisherman on the sea of Galilee when Jesus called both he and his brother St James to become disciples. After calling Simon Peter and Andrew, Jesus invited James and John to also follow him, “and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him” (Mark 1:20).
John was present, along with Peter and James, at the Transfiguration, when Jesus’ glory was revealed and “his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white” (Matt 17: 2).
He was also the disciple who was reclining closest to Christ at the Last Supper. Described in John’s Gospel as “the one whom Jesus loved”, John asked Jesus to tell him which disciple was going to betray him. Jesus revealed that it was Judas Iscariot (John 13:26). This episode illustrates how close John’s friendship was with Christ.
After all the other Apostles had fled in fear, John stood at the foot of the cross during the crucifixion along with Mary the mother of Christ, Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene. As we read in John’s Gospel (John 19: 26-27): “When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.” What an enormous honour to be trusted with caring for the mother of Christ!
John was one of the first to inspect the empty tomb on Easter Sunday morning. After Mary Magdelene alerted Peter and John that Christ’s body was missing, both Apostles ran toward the tomb. Being a younger man, John outran Peter and arrived at the tomb first: “He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head” (John 20:1-10).
According to tradition, as derived from the apocryphal Acts of John, sometime after Christ’s Ascension into heaven, John was almost martyred in Rome, miraculously surviving after he was put into boiling oil. He then lived in exile on the island of Patmos where he wrote Revelation.
It is believed John died of natural causes in Ephesus, Turkey, around 100 AD, aged in his nineties. As one of the four Gospel writers, John is symbolised by an eagle, one of the four creatures mentioned in Revelation.
This signifies the great theological and spiritual heights to which his Gospel soars, as he writes of the Word of God who “became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:14) and the “bread from heaven” which “gives life to the world” (John 6:31-34).