By DEB PIROCH
The Greeks called him the Divine Apostle. We know him better as the Beloved Apostle. He was a Galilean and the youngest of the Apostles: St. John.
John was the brother of James, another apostle, and was with Andrew one day when St. John the Baptist pointed out Christ to them. This is when Andrew first became aware of Christ, as we mentioned in a previous column on St. Andrew. Andrew and St. John the Apostle were both likely followers of St. John the Baptist, who was making the way for Christ.
Every Good Friday it should hit us anew that “the disciple,” as he is called, or St. John, was the only apostle and the only man who stood with our Lord, below the cross, watching with Him during the crucifixion. This is what many of us remember most, along with his being an evangelist.
And that as John stood there, before Christ expired, the Lord gave the Blessed Virgin to St. John’s care:
“When Jesus therefore had seen His mother and the disciple standing, whom He loved, He saith to His mother: Woman, behold thy son. After that, He saith to the disciple: Behold thy mother. And from that hour the disciple took her to his own” (John 29:26-17).
Approximately five times during the Gospel narrative he refers to himself not by name but as he does here, as the apostle whom Jesus loved. This method of expression is not hubris but rather gratitude that our Savior considered himself worthy.
Wanderer readers take it as a given that he was one of the four evangelists, majestically portrayed symbolically as an eagle. His Gospel differs from the others, and aimed to witness to our Lord’s divinity much more than merely retell all of His miracles.
The eagle is fitting, indeed; the height of his language is sublime and the mode of expression suits one speaking in language the most poetic of the four evangelists. Those who have attended the Extraordinary Rite will know that the rite always ends with the first words of John’s Gospel:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.”
Surely, there are no more beautiful sentences that have ever been crafted or divinely inspired.
Yet, there are those today who question that John was even the writer of this Gospel. Those making such claims either know nothing or care nothing for the sacred Tradition of the Church. Polycarp, martyred bishop of Smyrna, was a disciple of John. And Irenaeus, in the second century, had it directly from Polycarp that it was John that wrote the Gospel and documented this.
But there are other proofs. The Muratorian Fragment, which dates to AD 180 and which we have mentioned previously, lists all accepted books of the New Testament. It also includes John as the author of the Gospel, as does Tertullian of Carthage, and there are others. To say nothing that there are no denials. Why would someone bother to deny what was common knowledge? What rubbish is believed by some modern “scholars”!
So fearless were John and his brother James in proclaiming the Truth that Jesus called them “Boanerges,” meaning “Sons of Thunder” in Hebrew.
John was with our Lord during key events such as the raising of the Daughter of Jairus, the Transfiguration, and was sent to help prepare the Last Supper. Famously, as shown in art, at the final meal together he is shown having fallen asleep on the bosom of our Lord. This was at a time when those in the Roman Empire would eat meals reclining. At the dinner he also asked Christ who would betray Him and Christ answered insofar that John may have been the only one to understand the answer.
John experienced Christ’s life, death, and Resurrection, and went on to live many decades. Then he went to Ephesus with the Virgin Mary and only left her after her dormition, or passing, it is thought. The only one of the Twelve who did not die of martyrdom — though not from lack of trying — he was banished to the island of Patmos after Emperor Domitian tried to boil him unsuccessfully in oil. The oil had no effect and all those who witnessed the attempt at murdering the saint were said to have converted. When the emperor died, John returned to Ephesus.
Either on Patmos or in Ephesus he wrote the Gospel, having already written Revelations, in response to visions he was given. His Gospel was written after the other three, in part to combat heresy, and he also wrote three epistles.
His purity of spirit and body was remarkable, and many early Church fathers, such as Saints Ambrose and Chrysostom, wrote commentary on how appropriate that one so virginal in his life should be given care of the Virgin Mary.
Just as purity was key to the priesthood, he was chaste. He had witnessed betrayal in Judas, but did not betray despite threats of death. He watched Christ heal the sick and raise a dead girl to life, apparently doing the same in Ephesus. He witnessed love, and loved. As he aged and became infirm, he would still urge people, above all, love one another!
He died long after all of the other Twelve, but would have seen the Church in its infancy as the blood of the martyrs bore fruit. He died in AD 98-100.
Today, appropriately, he is the patron saint of loyalty, friendship, and love.
“And this is the testimony: that God hath given to us eternal life. And this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life; he that hath not the Son hath not life. These things I write to you that you may know that you have eternal life; you who believe in the name of the Son of God” (First Epistle of St. John 11-13).
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