God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him
In the quiet stillness of the Upper Room, as the shadows of betrayal and suffering approached, there rested one who leaned upon the breast of the Incarnate God, St. John, the beloved disciple. From that sacred place of nearness, he drank deeply of the love that surpasses understanding, a love that would anchor his soul through the darkest of nights and across the breadth of his long life.
Saint John, the son of Zebedee, was called from his nets by the Sea of Galilee into a greater mystery, to become not merely a fisher of fish, but a fisher of men, an evangelist of the Word made flesh. Yet more than that, he would become the disciple who stood nearest to the heart of Christ, the one who saw, heard, and touched the Word of Life (1 John 1:1).
He followed his Master not only along the dusty roads of Galilee and Judea, not only up the mount of Transfiguration, but even unto the hill of Calvary, where others had fled in fear. There, standing beneath the shadow of the Cross, he beheld Love crucified. Where St. Peter denied and Judas betrayed, St. John remained, the only disciple at the foot of the Cross, clinging to the One who first loved him.
To him was entrusted a sacred treasure: “Behold your mother,” said the crucified Lord, giving His own mother into St. John’s care. In that moment, the beloved disciple was drawn deeper into the mystery of the Church, receiving the Theotokos not only into his home, but into his heart, into his life of love and witness. The one who leaned on Christ’s heart would now care for the one who bore Him.
And when the tomb was found empty on the third day, St. John ran with St. Peter. Though younger, he outran him, but in humility, he did not enter first. Even in zeal, his heart was marked by reverence and order, a reflection of the divine harmony he had come to know in Christ.
In his Gospel, St. John wrote not merely history, but theology wrapped in the poetry of love. “In the beginning was the Word…” so begins the Gospel of the one who had seen the uncreated Light on Mount Tabor, who heard the divine heartbeat in the Upper Room, and who stood beneath the wounded side of our Saviour.
And then, he lived on. When others passed from this world in martyrdom, St. John endured. Exiled to Patmos, the Lord appeared to him once more, not as the humble Teacher of Galilee, but as the glorified Son of Man, whose eyes were flames of fire. There, in isolation, he was given the vision of eternity, the Revelation of things to come, the triumph of the Lamb.
Even into old age, the Apostle of Love spoke one message: “Little children, love one another.” Those were the last remembered words from the last living apostle. For he had seen with his eyes, and touched with his hands, the Love that never ends. He had stood in its shadow and bathed in its light. His life became a living testimony of that love, unfading and eternal.
O beloved Saint John, you who were closest to the Lord in life and in death, teach us to follow as you followed, faithfully, tenderly, with courage unto the Cross. Help us to abide in the love of Christ, to care for His Church, to proclaim with our lives that “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16).
Through your intercessions, O Holy Apostle, may we come to know that same perfect love, so as to cast out fear, endure all things, and live forever in Him who is Love Himself.
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