He was one of the inner circle with Peter and James. The 
	son of Zebedee, he and his brother James were named the 
	"sons of thunder". John is the author of the fourth Gospel,
	the Book of Revelation and three Catholic Epistles. He was
	imprisoned with Peter and later appeared in the Sanhedrin.
	John also was sent with Peter to Samaria, where they 
	prayed that the converts might receive the Holy Spirit. 
	In Jerusalem, he was present at the Council of the Apostles.
	John was "one of the two" with Andrew who first had an 
	audience with the Lord, He was the one "whom Jesus loved" 
	and who reclined on his bosom at the Mystic Supper. 
	
	Jesus from His cross entrusted His mother to John at the 
	foot of the cross. He was the one who ran with Peter to 
	the tomb on the morning of the resurrection, and who 
	recognized the Risen Lord at the Sea of Tiberius, where 
	our Lord spoke to him the words that he would not die 
	(John 21:7). 
	
	According to tradition, he went to Asia Minor and settled 
	in Ephesus. Later he was exiled to Patmos, an island.
	
	The "Divine Dozen" who served Jesus Christ as his apostles
	comprised a band of spiritual giants whose comparison to 
	one another invites scarcely more than an embarrassment. 
	But the sentimental favorite seems to be Saint John the 
	Evangelist and Theologian, the apostle who looked into 
	the dying eyes of our crucified Lord on that dark day at 
	Calvary and received the Messiah's last request. An 
	agonized John heard the final words from the Cross, 
	entrusting to him the care of the Mother of God, the 
	Virgin Mary, who was uppermost in the thoughts of her 
	Son in his last moments of earthly life (John 19:26). 
	
	Born in Bethesda of Galilee, the son of Zebedee, John 
	shared his apostolic mission with his brother the Apostle 
	James, who died for Christ in Jerusalem. His mother's name
	was Salome, but he is affectionately referred to as having
	three mothers, the other two being Mary the Mother of 
	Jesus and the symbolic Thunder (Boanerges). The latter 
	applied to him by the Savior, as the son of Thunder, 
	because he was rebuked for asking Christ to send down 
	"fire from Heaven to punish the citizens of Samaria that 
	refused to admit him because he was going to Jerusalem" 
	(Luke 9:53-56). He was in close personal contact with 
	Jesus to the end, despite his extensive travels as an 
	evangelist. 
	
	A dedicated Apostle, John was chosen by Jesus Christ to 
	accompany Him on the ascent of Mount Tabor, the scene of 
	the historic Transfiguration, and where Jesus was 
	proclaimed by God to be "his beloved son." The personal 
	ties with Jesus and his Mother were shared by Salome, 
	John's mother, whose love for the Savior earned her a 
	place among the saints and whose feast day is celebrated 
	on August 03,rdas one of the seven myrrh-bearing women 
	who anointed the sacred body of Christ after his descent 
	from the Cross. 
	
	John remained close to the Mother of the Savior throughout
	her lifetime and was at her side when she breathed her 
	last on August 15,th officiating at her burial in the 
	Garden of Gethsemane, a spot made sacred by her Son years 
	before. He was among the other disciples who discovered 
	the empty tomb of Mary, who forty days after her death had
	been summoned into Heaven. 
	
	With his promise to Jesus for his Mother's care fulfilled,
	Saint John now turned his full attention to carrying the 
	message of Jesus Christ to the spiritually darkened areas 
	of the then known world, preaching throughout Asia Minor 
	with a passion that won converts who formed a solid base 
	for the New Faith. Unlike the other eleven Apostles, all 
	of whom were martyred in the name of Jesus Christ, John 
	lived to the ripe age of 105, escaping the fate of his 
	brother evangelists. This remarkable durability provided 
	for one of the longest services on record in the cause of 
	Christ, a service which carried into the second century 
	which establishes him as a record holder in conversions 
	to Christianity. Some estimates have it that he was 
	personally responsible for winning over some 400,000 
	pagans to Christianity, a staggering figure considering 
	that his audiences could never have been at best a few 
	hundred and most of the time a lot less. Not even his 
	uncle, Saint Phophoros, who wrote about his nephew's 
	travels, could have envisioned such a protracted mission 
	for the Messiah. 
	
	John withdrew from the grueling pace of preaching in favor
	of the solitude of the beautiful island of Patmos in the 
	Aegean Sea. There he refreshed his mind and body and found
	the tranquillity in which it became possible to write that
	part of the Holy Scriptures known as the Revelation, a 
	profound and prophetic book of the New Testament. This 
	holy work was done at the express bidding of God, who 
	smote a huge cleft in a rock formation of a cave, still 
	visible today, and commanded John to write this revealing 
	segment of the Bible. On the spot where lightning struck 
	the cave the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople 
	maintains to this day a sacred shrine which has beckoned 
	countless religious pilgrims to the island of Patmos. 
	
	After leaving Patmos, John turned up at Ephesos, where in 
	the course of writing the three epistles contained in the 
	New Testament, he is said to have caused, through means 
	of a prayer vigil, the destruction of a pagan temple 
	dedicated to Artemis which is now the site of a beautiful 
	cathedral. A true man of God, John is one of the most 
	beloved figures of Christianity.