Homily For The Feast of St. John 2025

I once had a priest ask the question - is it harder to make a decision once to embrace martyrdom or is it more difficult to give oneself everyday in submission to Christ?  In other words, is it harder to be St. Stephen, who gave himself up to physical martyrdom or St. John, whose feast we celebrate today, who was the only Apostle to die a natural death, who was willing to die for Christ but died at a ripe old age.  

Yesterday, we began our celebration of various types of martyrdom pictured in the three feast days immediately after Christmas. St. Stephen, which we celebrated yesterday, was a martyr in both will and in deed.  St. John, the focus of today’s feast, was a martyr in will but NOT in deed.  St. John was more than willing to die but God appointed that he should live a long life.  

He died in the faith (which we all should aspire to do) even if he was not killed for the faith by hateful men.  Finally, the Holy Innocents, on Monday, those young male toddlers and babies in Bethlehem, who weren’t martyrs in will but were so in deed.  They couldn’t assent to belief in Jesus but were murdered all the same because of Herod’s genocide to try to destroy the Christ child. 

St. John was one of the inner circle of the Apostles, he shared with his brother, James, and with Peter, the uncommon fellowship with Our Lord.  Our Gospel today is from St. John’s Gospel, and here, the apostle that Jesus loved, John’s title for himself in his Gospel, is with Peter and Our Lord after the resurrection.  In this earlier portion of this passage, Jesus told Peter to feed his sheep and that he would suffer for the Gospel. Afterward, Peter looks at John and asks “what about him?”  Perhaps he meant, What kind of suffering will he endure?  Jesus tells him that if John were to remain until Christ’s return, what business is it of St. Peter’s?  

Our Lord commands St. Peter to Follow Him.  The matter of one’s discipleship is between the Lord and the individual.  There are common features of disciples; they meet together, they study together, they receive the Eucharist, they evangelize, disciple and so on.  Yet, obedience to Christ’s command to “Follow me” is a matter of personal responsibility.  God has chosen the good works that we are to walk in.  He has chosen our times and seasons; our God has a path of obedience tailored for the expansion of his kingdom and the ultimate blessing of the disciple.  

We are tempted to look around and compare.  Why does so and so have this?  Why do they get the best opportunities while I get the menial tasks?  Why do they seem to have the easy path?  We are reminded in our Gospel for today that it is the Lord who decides what is best for the follower of Jesus.  For St. Peter, it was physical martyrdom in Rome under Nero.  For St. John, he had a different path of endurance.  

His path included exile to Patmos and, for our benefit, the writing of five of the books of the New Testament.  In a very real sense, St. John died for Christ in a different way.  His life was one of dying unto Christ daily - the vocation of all Christians regardless of their circumstances.  

So on this feast of St John, let us meditate on what our vocation is - to be living sacrifices, to give attention to what God has placed before us, and to be obedient in the present.  As we do so, let us commit ourselves completely to our Lord and have the hearts of a martyr - one willing to die for Christ but perhaps called to a different rigor of living unto Him, moment by moment.  

Let us pray. MERCIFUL Lord, we beseech thee to cast thy bright beams of light upon thy Church, that it, being illumined by the doctrine of thy blessed Apostle and Evangelist Saint John, may so walk in the light of thy truth, that it may at length attain to life everlasting; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.