6 May: St. John the Evangelist Ante Portam Latinum

St. John's College, Cambridge
The namesake of St. John the Apostle

6 May: St. John the

Evangelist Ante Portam

Latinum

This youtube below gives a little background on John the Evangelist at/before the Latin Gate in Rome, remembered in the English 1662 Book of Common Prayer.  6 May on the liturgical calendar prompts the remembrance. 

This recalls the fictional, apocryphal and unsubstantiated claim that St. John the Evangelist in Rome emerged from a cauldron of boiling oil alive.  After the miraculous deliverance,  St. John was remanded to custody and banished to the Island of Patmos in the eastern Aegean Sea, all of this under Emperor Domitian. 

We dutifully dismiss the apocryphal and unscientific portions of this report,  as well as the allegation that St. John was in Rome.  Yet, the English Prayer Book reminds us that St. John suffered exile to Patmos, a fact we do not dispute and a story we need to remember.  Apocryphal in details, yet it is serviceable as a reminder of St. John's arraignment, custody, imprisonment and banishment to the Island of Patmos. Anglicans remember this day annually on 6 May.

St. John suffered for his faith and confession.  John was a Confessionalist. An elect Disciple, Apostle, Author and Confessionalist, St. John suffered as a warrior in the battle of the ages (vis a vis the theme of Augustine's Civitatas Dei). 

With such a banishment and imprisonment, St. John was but a foreshadowing of Joel Osteen and Joel's theme, "Your Best Life Now" (tongue in cheek).  Or, Benny Hinn, Kenny Copeland, and Paul Crouch's "Prosperity Gospel" (tongue in other cheek).  We shall never forego an opportunity to impale these American loons on the demonic horns of their own manifold dilemmas and theological idiocies. 

The following youtube gives a few (some dubious) tidbits on this Day remembered every 6 May by Confessional, informed and self-conscious Anglicans.[1]   It is perhaps one of the oddest days of remembrance in the BCP, but it is serviceable as a reminder of the sufferings of one of our saints and warriors, confessing his faith.

Additionally,  Anglicans remember 27 Dec annually on the liturgical calendar in remembrance of this saint and apostle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJn1nMvzMPo

Further research will yield interesting results from medievalist manuals on the lives of the saints.  A few of these manuals gratuitously repeat the unadjusted and unvetted story. 

May the readings and meditations continue.

[1]  In the youtube, one may also dismiss the utterly gratuitous, unsubstantiated and facile claim by the author of the youtube clip of dual authorship for the Gospel and Revelation.