Homily for the Feast of St. John the Apostle
Dec. 27, 2024
Collect
Missionaries of Charity, Bronx
That
Gospel is traditionally attributed to the apostle John, son of Zebedee, a
fisherman from Galilee. He’s one of the
figures wrapped up in this name John and this feastday. It’s possible that the author of the Gospel
was someone else; in fact, biblical scholars generally think the Gospel is the
work of several writers or editors who may have been disciples of the apostle
John.
Another
figure is the mysterious, unnamed “beloved disciple,” who appears only in the
4th Gospel, and only in the passion and resurrection stories.
Finally,
the author of the Book of Revelation is explicitly named John (1:1,4,9).
Our
feast today is about all of these figures, whether they were one, two, three,
or more. He or they unlock divine
secrets for us.
John
the apostle was totally committed to Jesus.
He quickly left his father and his livelihood as a fisherman to follow
Jesus (Mark 1:19-20). Jesus made him one
of his inner circle with his brother James and Simon Peter. St. Paul calls him one of the “pillars” of
the early Church (Gal 2:9). But even he
had to undergo conversion, to learn what being a disciple of Jesus really means;
for he and his brother were ambitious—“we want seats at your right and your
left, Master” (Mark 10:35-37)—and wanted to call down fire and brimstone on a
village that wouldn’t let Jesus in, so that Jesus nicknamed them “sons of
thunder” (Luke 9:54; Mark 3:17). But
John was converted to genuine discipleship and lived out his commitment to
Jesus. He reminds us that we also need
fuller conversion, deeper commitment.
John
the evangelist, whether or not he was the apostle, seems to be also the author
of the 3 New Testament letters that bear his name. In 2 of them, he identifies himself as “the
Elder” (2 John 1:1; 3 John 1:1), the respected leader of several local
churches, one who has received Jesus’ authentic teaching and preserves it. He gives
us a marvelous picture of Jesus’ divinity, stresses God’s love for us, and
emphasizes the command that we love one another.
The
Beloved Disciple generally is taken to be the author of the 4th Gospel, altho
this is disputed, because he stresses that he was at the Last Supper (John 13:23-25),
was an eyewitness to Jesus’ death (19:26,35), was the 1st to believe he had
risen, as we heard in this morning’s gospel (20:8), and then saw him at the Sea
of Galilee (21:7). He models closeness
to Jesus and faithfulness; he was at the cross.
He became the protector of Jesus’ mother, and thru him she becomes our
mother (19:26-27).
John
the visionary or John the seer writes the Book of Revelation with a very
different Greek style and theological approach than John the evangelist-letter
writer, meaning almost certainly that he’s a different person.[1] He was an authority figure among the churches
of Asia Minor. He bore witness to Jesus
by being exiled to a penal colony, and he exhorts his immediate readers and us
to persevere thru persecution and other trials so that we may attain the
heavenly Jerusalem, where the Lamb of God reigns.
Today
we honor the apostle, the evangelist, the visionary, and the beloved disciple. May their example and their teachings
penetrate our hearts, our words, and our actions.
[1]
John L. McKenzie, SJ, “Apocalypse,” in Dictionary of the Bible
(Milwaukee: Bruce, 1965), p. 41; Ronald Brownrigg, Who’s Who in the New
Testament, vol. 2 of Who’s Who in the Bible (New York: Wings Books,
1971), 2:235.
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