ST. JOHN  THE  APOSTLE
OUR  PARISH  PATRON

We know very little directly about the life of John the disciple of Jesus.  What we do know about his life we infer from the gospel accounts and the letters attributed to Saint John.

The brothers, James the Greater and John, were sons of Zebedee.  Their mother was probably Salome as the text of Mt. 27:56, indicates.  The gospels also suggest that the mother of James and John may have been the sister of the Virgin Mary, and therefore, the brothers probably were cousins of Jesus.

The gospel of Luke also tells us that the brothers were fishermen and were partners with Simon Peter.  The order of their names, James and John, suggest that John was the younger of the two.

One can infer from the gospel of John that he was once a disciple of John the Baptist and first met Jesus in the Jordan Valley.  John, James, Peter and Andrew were the first four disciples called in Galilee and these four names appear first in all the lists of the Twelve.  John, along with Peter and James, was one of the disciples most closely associated with Jesus.  The three witnessed the raising of Jairus' daughter, the Transfiguration and the agony in the garden.

The brothers, John and James, must have had fiery dispositions for their willingness to call down fire on the Samaritan towns that did not accept Jesus.  This may account for the name given to them by Jesus, Boanerges or 'Sons of Thunder'.

Jesus met their request for the highest rank in the kingdom of heaven if they were willing to suffer martyrdom.  It was to John, the Beloved Disciple, that Jesus entrusted the care of his mother as he was dying on the cross.

For the latter years of John's life, we are dependent on inferences about the authorship of the Johannine writings and on traditions of the Fathers of the early church.  A very early tradition from the writings if Iranaeus, who received it from Polycarp of Smyrna who knew John was that John who lived in Ephesus in Asia Minor until the time of the emperor Trajan.

A common opinion exists that, while in exile on the island of Patmos, John wrote the Apocalypse or Book of Revelation.  Among the stories told of John mention is made of his unwillingness to associate with heretics, his raising of a dead man to life, and his repeating of the instruction:  "Little children, love one another."

Of the four Evangelistic figures based on Rev. 4:7, John is depicted as an eagle because of the theological heights of the Prologue to his gospel.  A chalice is often found in the pictures of John reflecting Mt. 20:21 ("You will drink my cup").  This is combined with the legend that when John was given a poisoned cup to drink, the poison came out as a serpent.  The custom in Europe of drinking a 'cup of charity' in honor of John remains in some parts of Europe to this day.

The practice of celebrating John's feast (December 27) immediately after the feast of Stephen is ancient, originating before the 5th century.

It was fitting, then, that it was to John that Jesus entrusted the care of his mother as Jesus was dying on the cross.  After all, John was the Beloved Disciple.

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Page modified:  December 26, 2005.