27 December:Feast of St. John, Apostle & Evangelist

I Reading: 1Jn 1: 1- 4: What we have seen and heard telling you.

Gospel: Jn 20: 2-8: The other disciple, running faster than Peter, reached the tomb first. He saw and believed without entering into the tomb.

Today we celebrate the feast of St. John, the apostle and the evangelist who has written the fourth Gospel, the Apocalypse or Revelation and the three epistles. He is known as the “Beloved disciple” of Jesus in the Gospel. He does not mention his own name, he refers to himself impersonally as “another disciple” (Jn 18:15), “the other disciple” (Jn 20: 2), “the apostle whom Jesus loved” (Jn 13: 23; 19: 26; 21: 7) and finally, as “the one who had leaned on Jesus’ breast at the supper” (Jn 20: 20). John was the son of Zebedee, and one the three (with Peter and James) who were closest to the Lord, present at the transfiguration, the agony in the garden, the raising of the daughter of Jairus.

In doing so, John is expressing his firm conviction of Jesus’ love for him from the very beginning of his first call (Jn 1: 35-39). The lesion we learn from these that each one ought to consider him/herself as “disciple whom Jesus loved”, and keep on loving. In other words, John invites us all to discover Christ’s love for us, to reflect on it, to experience it and realise the love of Jesus in our lives so that our Christian life may become a joyful and witnessing life.

Thought: John saw and believed in Jesus’ resurrection. He did not doubt in Jesus’ resurrection, therefore he did not enter into the tomb to investigate or experiment although he reached first then Peter. Let us see Jesus and believe in the Good News and in the power of Jesus in the Eucharist.

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