St John the Evangelist

Today is the principal feast day of St John the Apostle and Evangelist.

Unlike his namesake St John the Baptist the life of the Evangelist has not provided artists with the dramatic inspiration of the life and death of the Great Foreunner. Mysticism is not as good material as Martyrdom. Even his deliverance from boiling oil at the Latern Gate is a rarity for patrons and artists, as is the tradition that he was accorded the privilege of being assumed into Heaven - an idea that was popular in later medieval Germany. Far too many depictions show him as a pale youth looking, frankly, a bit soppy, or as another venerable patriarch.

El Greco however did create an image which is both youthful and yet resolute - even if he does look slightly as someone performing a party trick - and of a young man you would want on your side.

St John the Apostle and Evangelist 

El Greco, 1610-1614

Image Wikipedia 

Another late work by El Greco, the uncompleted, and definitely dramatic The Vision of Saint John, dated to 1608-14, and now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York is discussed in an article from The Independent from 2013 at Great Works: The Vision of St John, 1608-14, By El Greco

Today it is the custom to bless wine, apparently by association with St John drinking deliberately poisoned wine and being unscathed.  I watched this ceremony online from SS Gregory and Augustine in Oxfordat the conclusion of the evening Mass.

The New Liturgical Movement had an article about this tradition last year which can be seen at The Blessing of Wine on the Feast of St John the Evangelist

Fr Zuhlsdorf has posted twice about this custom in recent years, and those pieces can be seen at 27 Dec – St. John the Evangelist – Today we bless WINE! and at Blessing wine on 27 December – St. John’s Day… or “another beverage”?