The Beloved Disciple

St John the Apostle, by Deodato Orlandi, ca. 1310

Last week we looked at St. Stephen, the first of the so-called Comrades of Christ who huddle close in spirit to the manger of their Lord. Today we pay homage to the second Comrade.

Like Stephen, St. John the Apostle and Evangelist is associated with charity, since his writings marvelously emphasize the love of God. [1] John, in turn, was blessed by Christ’s special love for him. Although Our Lord made St. Peter the head of His Church, He retained a personal affection for the “beloved disciple.” This is all the more endearing given the fact that Our Lord also referred to John and his older brother St. James the Great as “sons of thunder,” most likely for their fiery tempers. (Mark 3, 17)

It is difficult for any lover of the Latin Mass not to have a special love for St. John, whose Prologue to his Gospel furnishes us with the Gregorian rite’s seemingly misplaced yet magnificent conclusion. I say seemingly misplaced, for no one would logically expect another Gospel to be read after the dismissal and final blessing. Yet the Prologue to John’s Gospel, which St. Jerome says is so splendid that it should be written in letters of gold, is the perfect summary of the mystery of the altar and the perfect blueprint of how we should henceforth conduct ourselves. For in speaking of the Word becoming flesh, the Prologue reminds us not only of the Incarnation, but of the Eucharist, God in the flesh before us. And in describing the testimony of John the Baptist, the Prologue admonishes us to bear similar witness after we leave the church to Him that is “full of grace and truth.”

It has been said that St. John was the only Apostle who did not die a martyr because he already testified to the Cross by standing at its foot with the Mother of God. Yet this does not mean that no attempts on his life were ever made. According to St. Jerome, John was brought to Rome and thrown into a vat of boiling oil but emerged miraculously unscathed (on the spot near the Porta Latina where this is reputed to have taken place, there is a tiny shrine and, not far away, a beautiful Romanesque church named San Giovanni). The frustrated Emperor then banished John to the Island of Patmos, where he wrote the Book of Revelation.

St John at Patmos, by Hieronymus Bosch, circa 1489

Liturgy

In the traditional Roman Rite prior to 1955, the Feast of Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist had a proper Mass on December 27 and on the octave day of January 3. In the Breviary, the feast featured Psalm antiphons for Lauds that told the story of his life as well as proper antiphons for the Benedictus and Magnificat and a proper Collect. Prior to 1960, John’s cult was also recapitulated on May 6 as the Feast of St. John at the Latin Gate, the anniversary of his would-be martyrdom.

In Vino Caritas

But perhaps the Saint’s most famous brush with death (as far as popular folklore is concerned) is when his enemies tried to kill him by poisoning his cup of wine. Some say that when the Divine John (as he is called in the East) made the sign of the cross over the cup, it split in half, thus spilling the poison. Others, however, claim that his blessing neutralized the deadly beverage and allowed him to enjoy it unharmed. Either way, it is a powerful reminder to say one’s grace before meals.

It is also a reminder to observe an old and charming custom that literally toasts to the memory of the saint. In the Roman ritual is a blessing of wine specifically for this feast:

O Lord God, deign to bless and consecrate with Thy right hand this cup of wine and of any drink whatsoever: and grant that by the merits of Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist all who believe in Thee and who drink from this cup may be blessed and protected. And as Blessed John drank poison from the cup and remained completely unharmed, may all who drink from this cup on this day in honor of Blessed John be, by his merits, rescued from every sickness of poison and from every kind of harm; and, offering themselves up body and soul, may they be delivered from all fault. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Bless, O Lord, this drink, Thy creation: that it may be a salutary remedy for all who consume it: and grant through the invocation of Thy holy name that whoever tastes of it may, by Thy generosity, receive health of the soul as well as of the body. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

And may the blessing of almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, descend upon this wine, Thy creation, and upon any drink whatsoever, and remain forever. Amen.

According to Maria von Trapp, it was customary in Austria and other places to bring wine or cider to church on this day so that the priest could give this blessing after Mass. Later that night, the wine is poured into everyone’s glass before dinner. The father then takes his glass, touches it to the mother’s and says, “I drink to you the love of St. John,” to which the mother replies, “I thank you for the love of St. John.” Both take a sip before the mother turns to the oldest child and repeats the ritual, at which point the child turns to the next oldest, etc. The last one to receive St. John’s love gives it back to the father, thus closing the family circle. [2]

Trapp Family Singers, 1941

Since the blessed wine is a sacramental, it is also kept in the house throughout the year for newlyweds to drink immediately after their wedding ceremony, for travelers before a trip, and for the dying after receiving Last Rites. But if it is not possible to have the wine blessed by a priest, the blessing may still be said by the family (it will not have the same efficacy, of course, but it is still a prayer to God).

And the wine can also be mulled.

St. John’s Wine

1 quart red wine

3 whole cloves

1/16 teaspoon ground cardamom

2 two-inch cinnamon sticks

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 cup sugar

Pour the wine into a large saucepan. Add the remaining ingredients. Boil for 5 minutes. Serve hot. 8-10 servings.

This is an ideal family treat, since most of the alcohol is evaporated. And it is perfect for a cold winter’s night: its temperature warms the tips of one’s toes, and the story it betokens the cockles of one’s heart. May the Love of the Infant Jesus fill the cup of our souls as it surely did Christ’s good comrades.

For more information on the Christmas season, see Michael Foley's latest book, Why We Kiss under the Mistletoe: Christmas Traditions Explained (Regnery, 2022). An earlier version of this article also appeared as “The Counts of Jesu Christo” in The Latin Mass magazine 17:5 (Advent/Christmas 2008), pp. 44-47. Many thanks to its editors for allowing its inclusion here.

Notes

[1] See John 3, 16; 1 John 4, 7-8.

[2] Maria Augusta Trapp, Around the Year with the Trapp Family (NY: Pantheon, 1955), pp. 64-65.

Why 1962 Must Eventually Perish: The Case of St. John

Each year after Christmas comes the wonderful sequence of companion feasts. This week at NLM, I should like to make a brief reflection on St. John the Divine.

December 27th is the feast of the virgin disciple who rested his head on the breast of Jesus and who alone remained faithful in the hour of His Passion; the one who merited to receive the Mother of God as his mother, with whom he dwelt in Patmos; the author of the loftiest of the four Gospels, the Epistles of Agape, and the Apocalypse; the Theologian par excellence, model and measure of all mystics; the last living Apostle with the cessation of whose breath public revelation ceased.

St. John’s feast on December 27th is older than the octave of Christmas. In every missal known to Christendom, his feast would have been celebrated on this date, no matter what. Dignum et justum.

But in the 1960 code of rubrics that governs the 1962 Missale Romanum, whenever December 27th falls on a Sunday, the beloved disciple simply vanishes from Mass and receives a measly commemoration at Lauds and Vespers, as if we were suddenly catapulted into the middle of Lent.

The same thing happens, believe it or not, to St. Stephen and the Holy Innocents: all of them can be bumped off, liturgically speaking.

To make it even sillier, there’s always at least one universal feria, the 30th, to which the Sunday gets bumped when the Comites Christi or even St. Thomas of Canterbury takes precedence. Indeed, apostolic devaluation is infectious: all of the Apostles other than Saints Peter and Paul get shabby treatment in the 1960 rubrics. Needless to say, Peter and Paul were shorn of their octave some years earlier.

Such topsy-turvy rubrics and grave omissions point up the feebleness of the editio typica of 1962, the “missal of Bd. John XXIII” in the short-lived nomenclature of Summorum Pontificum, as well as the importance of restoring the Tridentine rite to its own proper principles. 1962 is a half-dismantled building waiting for the demolition crew called the Consilium. Such is the burden of the argument of chapter 12 in my book The Once and Future Roman Rite.

I should note that by the time the Novus Ordo Ambrosianus was designed, the folly of these feasts being impeded had been recognized, and the neo-Ambrosian rite does not allow it to occur. So, even though the Ambrosian rite normally does not allow any feast to impede a Sunday, even things like All Saints, Assumption, St Charles Borromeo, yet there is an exception during the octave of Christmas, when Stephen, John, the Holy Innocents, and even Thomas of Canterbury do take precedence over the Sunday after Christmas. Meanwhile, neither the 1962 and 1969 missals has rectified this egregious defect.

Pope Francis has made it clear that the Tradition is unwelcome and unwanted. If there is a place for the Tradition, it cannot rest on the shifting grounds of papal approval; it must be a matter of inherent worth and dignity. 1920 is the safe editio typica from which to begin the restoration; any editio post typicam until about 1948 will present no great difficulties.

The most urgent practical need right now in the new liturgical movement is the republication of all of the liturgical books before their post-War deformations.

 

Don't let the rigged rubrics of this John take away the homage owed to that John

The images below are taken from my 1951 Monastic Diurnal, reflecting preconciliar Benedictine usage (which is virtually identical to the pre-Pacellian Roman use):

The images of St. John and John XXIII are from Fr. Lawrence Lew's Flickr account.

The Alleluia of Christmas Day, the Protomartyr, and the Beloved Disciple

I always feel that the feast of the Beloved Disciple, the Eagle Evangelist, the Divine, the Theologian, the Seer of Patmos, ought to receive much more attention than it does. Part of the reason for that feeling might be personal: my wife and I chose this feastday for our nuptial High Mass twenty-three years ago. But it also has to do with my study of St. John’s Gospel and St. Thomas Aquinas’s commentary thereupon, which is his most profound biblical work; it has to do with my brushing up against St. John nearly every day in the form of the Prologue that serves as the traditional Mass’s “epilogue.” And ever since I read Scott Hahn’s book The Supper of the Lamb, I have thought about St. John’s Book of Revelation as the template for Catholic liturgy.

As a church musician, it pains me that the feast of St. Stephen, St. John, and the Holy Innocents, indeed every day of the Christmas octave until the Circumcision, relatively rarely sees a sung Mass or a solemn Mass. Most clergy and musicians are exhausted after the liturgical (and other) excesses of Christmas, so church tends to be sparsely attended on these octave days. I’ve noticed a similar phenomenon during the octave of Easter. Even though each day of the octave has a splendid proper Mass, all of them graced with some of the most sublime chants of the entire repertoire, one will be lucky to see a motley group sprinkled in the church for low Mass. I wonder if it has been ever thus. Perhaps readers more knowledgeable of historical precedents regarding the observance of days within these two octaves could add some observations in the comments.

Fortunately, over the past three decades, I have been called upon, at one time or another, to sing Mass for most of these octave days, and thus have slowly become acquainted with their more exotic riches. Singing for the feast of St. Stephen last year, I was surprised by the challenge presented by the grand Offertory “Elegerunt Apostoli Stephanum levitam”—with its exultant flourishes on the words plenum fide and Domine Jesu, and its climbing figures on lapidaverunt and spiritum—and the equally grand Communion “Video caelos apertos.”

What really caught my attention was the fact that the same melody is used for the Alleluia on December 25th (Mass of the Day), December 26th, and December 27th, with only the words changing. In this way, the liturgy establishes a subtle but profound connection between these three feasts and their respective Gospels. The Christ-child, Word made flesh, the faithful witness, “the only man who was born to die” as Fulton Sheen once said, is accompanied in the Gospel procession by His first martyr, and by the virgin disciple who followed the Lamb whithersoever He went, even to the foot of the Cross and the empty tomb. The great light descends to the earth; the heavens are opened for the just; true testimony is borne to the Light who is the Life of men.
 

CHRISTMAS DAY

Dies sanctifícátus illúxit nobis: veníte, gentes, et adoráte Dóminum: quia hódie descéndit lux magna super terram. (A sanctified day hath shone upon us: come ye Gentiles and adore the Lord: for this day a great light hath descended upon the earth.) [The Gospel of the day is the Prologue of St. John.]

ST. STEPHEN

Video cælos apertos, et Jesum stantem a dextris virtutis Dei. (I see the heavens opened, and Jesus standing on the right hand of the power of God.) [The Gospel of the day is from Matthew 23, Christ's prophecy of the coming persecution of His disciples, and His lament over Jerusalem.] 

ST. JOHN

Hic est discipulus ille, qui testamonium perhibet de his: et scimus, quia verum est testimonium ejus. (This is that disciple who giveth testimony of these things: and we know that his testimony is true.) [The Gospel is from John 21, the curious passage where St. Peter asks Jesus about John, and receives a response that is then said to be misinterpreted as John not dying.]

A pragmatically-minded person might point out that it’s also a mercy to the singers to give them the same melody three days in a row, so that if they are going to sing all these Masses right after Christmas, some of the weight has been lifted off their shoulders. How like the tradition of the Church, to do something at once so beautiful and so practical!

Photos by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P.