Happy feast day of our patron, St. John the Evangelist! St. John is one of my favorite saints,
not only because he was a good runner, but also because of his writings in the
Bible. I am very excited to
celebrate his feast today.
I
think I’ve mentioned to you before—I know I have to our students—but St. John
is represented in symbology and iconography as an eagle. That’s why you see an eagle on our ambo
and in the blue stained glass window in the choir loft. I also have the eagle, as well as the
symbols for the other three Evanglists—Matthew, Mark and Luke—on my chalice and
vestments.
John
is represented by the eagle because he soars the heights of spiritual and
theological insight. He is one of
the most brilliant thinkers our Church has ever seen. Consider part of our first reading: “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what
we have seen with our eyes, what we looked upon and
touched with our hands concerns the Word of life—for the
life was made visible; we have seen it and testify to it and
proclaim to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was
made visible to us…” In a few words John synthesizes the essence of the Old
Testament and Christ—the Word—who was made flesh.
The
soul purpose of John’s writings is to inspire belief. He can write so eloquently about faith in Jesus because he
was an example par excellence of believing: “Then the other
disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb
first, and
he saw and believed.”
May
St. John, our patron, inspire us to believe more deeply in Jesus Christ whose
incarnation we celebrate this Christmas season. May we seek his insight in his writings in Scripture.
St.
John the Evangelist, pray for us!
No comments:
Post a Comment