DECEMBER 27 – ST. JOHN, EVANGELIST.

ST. JOHN, the youngest of the Apostles in age, was called to follow Christ on the banks of the Jordan during the first days of our Lord’s ministry. He was one of the privileged few present at the Transfiguration and the Agony in the garden. At the Last Supper, his head rested on the bosom of Jesus, and in the hours of the Passion, when others fled or denied their Master, St. John kept his place by the side of Jesus, and at the last stood by the Cross with Mary. From the Cross the dying Saviour bequeathed His Mother to the care of the faithful Apostle, who from that hour took her to his own;” thus fitly, as St. Austin says, “to a virgin was the Virgin entrusted.” After the Ascension, St. John lived first at Jerusalem, and then at Ephesus. He was thrown by Domitian into a cauldron of boiling oil, and is thus reckoned a martyr, though miraculously preserved from hurt. Afterwards he was banished to the isle of Patmos, where he received the heavenly visions described in the Apocalypse. He died at a great age in peace, at Ephesus, in the year 100.

REFLECTION: St. John is a living example of our Lord’s saying, “Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.”

WORD OF THE DAY

IMITATION. The conscious act or process of seeking to reproduce the desirable features or qualities of another, especially of another person. The term applies first to the field of representative art, which strives to reproduce as faithfully as possible the natural forms it is depicting. But its wider use is in Christian spirituality, where Christ is seen as the perfect exemplar for his followers to imitate. His human nature thus becomes the model for Christians to reproduce, and in the process they are becoming more Godlike since Christ is also divine.

Modern Catholic Dictionary, Fr. John Hardon SJ (Get the real one at Eternal Life — don’t accept an abridged or edited version of this masterpiece!)

DAILY CHRISTMAS MEDITATIONS

Deepen your appreciation of the Incarnation and our salvation with The Great Truths Series by Fr. Richard Clarke S.J. Read today’s “The Holy Mother & The Employments of Heaven” but consider this:

While faith and hope will be at an end in heaven, the virtue of charity will remain.  There is nothing on earth so sweet as love; nothing that fills the heart with such continual joy; nothing that so occupies the soul and causes men to forget all else.  This is the case when the object of our love is a perishable imperfect creature like ourselves.

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