MIRACULOUS MIRACLES^™

Prayer — Prayers of the Saints

Prayer to St. John the Apostle and Evangelist

Indulgenced by Leo XIII, 8 December 1897

To the disciple who leaned on Christ's breast at supper and was given His mother at the Cross: 'inflame me with a most ardent love towards Jesus and Mary.'

The Prayer

English · Original

O glorious Apostle, who, on account of thy virginal purity, wast so beloved by Jesus as to deserve to lay thy head upon His divine breast, and to be left, in His place, as son to His most holy Mother; I beg thee to inflame me with a most ardent love towards Jesus and Mary. Obtain for me from our Lord that I, too, with a heart purified from earthly affections, may be made worthy to be ever united to Jesus as a faithful disciple, and to Mary as a devoted son, both here on earth and eternally in heaven. Amen.

When the Prayer is Said

On 27 December, his feast in the Christmas octave; for writers and theologians; for purity of heart.

History & Background

Two scenes make John who he is, and the prayer names them both in a single sentence. At the Last Supper he was 'leaning on Jesus' bosom, one of his disciples whom Jesus loved' (John 13:23). At the Cross he was given what no one else was given: 'Behold thy mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own' (John 19:27).

So the prayer asks him for a double love, to Jesus and to Mary, and to be 'united to Jesus as a faithful disciple, and to Mary as a devoted son' — which is precisely the position the dying Christ put him in. The Church reads that arrangement as made for every Christian, not for John alone. Leo XIII indulgenced the prayer in 1897; the text is the Raccolta's of 1910.

Indulgences Attached

Two hundred days, once a day — Leo XIII, 8 December 1897 (Raccolta, 1910, no. 325).

Related Saints

St. John the Apostle and Evangelist

early 1st century, Bethsaida – c. AD 100, Ephesus

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