December 27
The saints and feasts remembered on December 27, each with a short life, a Bible passage and a prayer.
Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist
Fisherman called by Jesus, remembered as the beloved disciple
John was a fisherman from Galilee, son of Zebedee and brother of James. The brothers left their father’s boat to follow Jesus, who nicknamed them “sons of thunder,” perhaps for their fiery temper. With Peter, John was one of the few disciples Jesus kept close at key moments, including the night of prayer in Gethsemane.
After Easter, the Book of Acts shows John beside Peter in Jerusalem, preaching and even being arrested, and Paul calls him a “pillar” of the church. Early tradition identifies him with the “disciple whom Jesus loved,” who stood at the cross and took Jesus’ mother into his home. It also credits him with the Fourth Gospel, three letters and Revelation, though scholars still debate who wrote them. Tradition says he died at an old age in Ephesus.
Christians remember him for writings that call Jesus the Word made flesh and insist, again and again, that God is love.
Beloved, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
1 John 4:7–8 · BSB
A prayer
God of love, you called John from his nets to follow your Son, and through the Gospel handed down in his name you show us that you are love. Draw us close to Jesus as he was, keep us faithful at the foot of the cross, and teach us to love one another in deed and in truth. Amen.
The lives are written with AI help from public-domain histories and checked before publishing; the prayers are ours. Bible quotations are from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), in the public domain. How we write.