We proclaim to you the Word of life - what we have heard, looked upon with our own eyes, and touched with our own hands. The Church honors today the life and vocation of the Apostle and Evangelist St. John. With his brother James, the two sons of Zebedee were the second pair of brothers recruited by Jesus during the initial stages of the formation of the disciples. St. John is believed to have been the youngest of the twelve apostles, a fact that has been proposed as a contributing factor for him being fronted as the disciple whom Jesus loved the most (as the youngest of the twelve, he was the closest in age to Jesus). St. John is the uncontested author of the Gospel that bears his name, as well as the book of Revelation. He is also proposed as the author of the three epistles bearing his name. St. John died in Ephesus around the year 100 AD. He is the patron of Asiatic Turkey.
Whereas the passage that constitutes today’s First reading can certainly be seen as celebrating St. John as an Evangelist, a second look at it reveals that it does speak about his call as an Apostle too. For John declares that he is a proclaimer of something that he has seen and touched, something with which he has a personal relationship. Consequently, not only is he a proclaimer of a message but he is also a witness of that which he proclaims. In other words, John says that he knows what he is talking about, and as such, he is an authentic proclaimer. This is whom an apostle is.
St. John and the other apostles were enthusiastic about preaching Jesus of Nazareth because of the personal relationship that they had with him. They could not be easily persuaded to abandon their responsibility because of the conviction that their close relationship to Jesus gave them. They could literally describe in fine details who Jesus was and the mighty things that God was doing through him. He (Jesus) was definitely the Word of life that had come from the Father. There was no doubt about this fact in their minds.
All of us who are celebrating the life and vocation of the Apostle and Evangelist John today do not have the privilege of having “seen” and “touched” Jesus. However, we too can boast of having a personal relationship with him. For unless we have a personal relationship with him, we cannot become authentic disciples of his. We are only able to bear witness to Jesus with conviction if we too, like John, can say that we “know” and have “seen” this very Jesus Christ whom we are proclaiming. Our preaching of the good news, like that of John and the other apostles, must issue from our experience of Jesus if it has to be authentic.