John is No. 4!

Its spirituality is out of this world
 
The fourth Gospel is attributed to the apostle John, the “beloved disciple,” son of Zebedee. This God-inspired written witness to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is very different from the previous three gospels. John is the most theological gospel and the depth of thought, combined with the heights of its insights, invites us to savor it slowly and with a lot of prayer and reflection.
 
The goal of these deep and profound words is simple. He shows us that Jesus – God and man – is the Messiah:
 
“…these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name” (John 20, 31).
 
John, part of Jesus’ inner circle, refers to himself as the “beloved disciple” multiple times:
 
“One of his disciples, the one whom Jesus loved, was reclining at Jesus’ side” (John 13, 23).
 
“When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son’” (John 19, 26).
 
“So the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, ‘It is the Lord’” (John 21, 7).
 
“Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following…” (John 21, 20).
 
The Apostle John is God’s inspired primary author of the fourth gospel, others probably assisted with some editing. Various Church fathers reassure us that the references to the “beloved disciple” are the apostle John’s coded way to refer to himself. Love is a key theme in the Gospel. There is a lot of love in the Gospel of John!
 
The Gospel has a simple outline and begins with a beautiful and profound prologue, that serves as a summary of the Gospel. It is followed by two main sections: The Book of Signs and The Book of Glory. Here is a selection from the beautiful prologue:
 
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. … And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth. … From his fullness we have all received.”
 
Father Francis J. Moloney, S.D.B., in his monumental work “The Gospel of John,” published by Liturgical Press as part of their Sacra Pagina series, begins his commentary on the prologue with the following statement:
 
“The prologue plays an important role in the rhetoric of the Fourth Gospel. John 1:1-18 informs the reader that Jesus Christ is the incarnation of the preexistent Word and that life, light and divine filiation flow from an acceptance of the story of the unseen God revealed by the incarnate Word. This story perfects the former gift of the Law given through Moses. However, this theology and christology only have been affirmed. The reader has been told who Jesus is and what he has done, but an important question remains unanswered: How did this action of God in the human story take place? Only a Johannine story of Jesus can answer that question.”
 
Thank you, Lord, for the Gospel of John.