Beloved Disciple

Dear Readers, I inadvertently commented on Saturday's Gospel yesterday!
(Lectionary #266). Today's Gospel is Lectionary # 265 or Friday's. I take
one of the apostles who was in the boat with St. Peter as the theme for the
reading offered here as my reflection.. He is unnamed but given the title
"Beloved Disciple" or the disciple whom Jesus loved. The following
commentary is on this Beloved Disciple and the Scriptures are for Friday
not Saturday. Sorry about that. The fact that Psalm 118 was used for both
days is what caused me to have a copyist's mistake called HOMOEOTELEUTON.

Scripture: Lectionary # 265. Acts 4:1-12. Psalm 118: 1-2.4. 22-24. 25-27.
John 21:1-14:

We know that John has three resurrection appearances of Jesus and that he
has appearances in Jerusalem in chapter twenty and in chapter twenty-one in
Galilee at the lake. It is here that we discover the disciple whom Jesus
loved among the other six who are in the boat. They have returned to what
they were most familiar with--fishing. The only fresh water is the Lake of
Galilee which is called the Sea of Tiberius in the Fourth Gospel.

We have the following disciples (apostles) who are named: Simon Peter,
Thomas ("the twin"), Nathanael. Then two are described as the sons of
Zebedee (James and John), and finally two others thus seven of them. Fr.
Raymond Brown who struggled for many years with trying to correlate the
Apostle John with the Beloved Disciple finally concluded that the
Scriptures of John do not give us the historical exactitude of John being
the same person as the Beloved Disciple. He does give us, however, this
important remark that will help us: "One may wonder whether titles of
reverence were not a Johannine trait, for in John such symbolically
important figures as the Beloved Disciple and the mother of Jesus are never
identified by personal name." (New Testament Introduction, p.398).

For many of us the Beloved Disciple will always be associated with the
Apostle John. In fact, the Marianists have John the Apostle as one of their
special patron saints and they honor him in what they pray in the afternoon
called the "Three O'Clock Prayer." The lines of that prayer are, "St.
John, obtain for us the grace of taking Mary into our life as you did, amd
pf assisting her in her mission." This apostle named John is important for
us as a model of faithful disciple just as Mary is also such a preeminent
model. Both have fulfilled the criteria for a disciple and have been the
two who were faithful in following the Lore most closely. They with the
three other holy women were at the foot of the Cross (John 19:25-28a).

Both Scripture and Tradition are part of revelation and here it is the
Tradition that asserts the identity of John with the Beloved Disciple. We
look at both of these revelatory modes as helpful for our faith; it is not
a Scriptura Sola approach. The Decree on Divine Revelation gives us in six
short chapters the teaching of Vatican II on Revelation that is an
excellent source for our faith by its clarification of the relationship
between Scripture and Tradtion.

The Jewish way of looking at this is there is a Torah that is written and
there is with equal value the Torah that is orally handed on. Perhaps, by
learning more about Tradition from our Jewish brothers and sisters we would
understand better what Vatican II gives us in Dei Verbum. Moreover no one
has ever come up with a better solution for the identity of the Beloved
Disciple than what the Tradition hands on. Some have mistakenly identified
this disicple with Lazarus or Mary Magdalene, but in reading John's
introducing the first disciples by name and also in what we see about seven
of them in today's reading, we know that the Beloved Disciple is in the
fishing boat! And so is a John who is not named. Perhaps, this is
straining the blood out of a turnip, but it shows that scholars do take the
Scriptures seriously and that believers while relying on their help
sometimes do better by deepening their faith. John will always be the most
consistent name to be identified with the Fourth Gospel and with the
Beloved Disciple.
Amen. Alleluiah.