Saint John the Evangelist’s Day.
The Collect.
MERCIFUL
Lord,
we beseech thee to cast thy bright beams of light upon thy Church, that it
being enlightened by the doctrine of thy blessed Apostle and Evangelist Saint
John may so walk in the light of thy truth, that it may at length attain to the
light of everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
[Then
shall follow the Collect of the Nativity, which shall be said continually unto
New-year’s Eve.]
Epistle
Reading:1 John 1.1-10
Gospel
Reading: St. John 21.19-25
Massey Hamilton Shepherd, Jr.:
“This is one of the few Prayer Book Collects that
can be traced back to the Leonine Sacramentary. ( . . . ) The 1662 revisers
added the phrase, ‘so walk in the light of thy truth.’ The metaphor of light
which suffuses this Collect is especially appropriate, for it is constantly so
used in the Gospel and the First Epistle of John to describe not only the
nature of Christian experience, but also the nature of God Himself” (“The
Oxford American Prayer Book Commentary,” 101).
St.
Ireneaus:
There
are also those who heard from him (Polycarp) thatJohn, the disciple of the
Lord, going to bathe at Ephesus, and perceiving Cerinthus within, rushed out of
the bath-house without bathing, exclaiming, “Let us fly, lest even the
bath-house fall down, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within.”
And Polycarp himself replied to Marcion, who met him on one occasion, and said,
“Dost thou know me?” “I do know thee, the first-born of Satan.” Such was the
horror which the apostles and their disciples had against holding even verbal communication
with any corrupters of the truth; as Paul also says, “A man that is an heretic,
after the first and second admonition, reject; knowing that he that is such is
subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.” There is also a very powerful
Epistle of Polycarp written to the Philippians, from which those who choose to
do so, and are anxious about their salvation, can learn the character of his
faith, and the preaching of the truth. Then, again, the Church in Ephesus,
founded by Paul, and having John remaining among them permanently until the
times of Trajan, is a true witness of the tradition of the apostles” (“Against
Heresies,” III.3.4).
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Primus Pilus II
