O Lord, open my lips.
And my mouth shall proclaim Your praise.

O God, come to my assistance, O Lord, make haste to help me.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.

As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be, world without end.

Amen.

Apostle and Evangelist

In his Gospel, St John calls himself the disciple whom Jesus loved. It was he who reclined on the chest of the Saviour at the Last Supper. He is the author of the sublime Gospel which so powerfully proclaims the Divinity of Christ. To Him also our Lord, hanging on the Cross, entrusted His beloved Mother, and likewise he to His Mother. In this gesture the early Church saw out Lord bequeath all her Son's followers to her as her children, and she to them as a spiritual mother.

Unlike the other Apostles, he escaped martyrdom and died at an advanced age around 100AD. At Ephesus. He appears to have spent the last years of his life at the head of the Churches of Asia Minor.

Acclamations For Reflection:—

• He who overcomes, I will make Him a pillar in My temple, says the Lord; and I will write upon him My name and the name of the city, the new Jerusalem. Him who overcomes I will permit to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of My God.

• On that day I will take you for My servant and I will set you as a signet ring in My sight; for I have chosen you, says the Lord. Be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life.

• This is John, who during the Last Supper reclined on the breast of the Lord. Blessed is the Apostle to whom the secrets of heaven are revealed.