Remembering St. John of Patmos

Yesterday after I found out it was St. Stephen's Day I did some research on how that day came to be.  What I found out was really very cool.  I found out that there is a calendar of saints that the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Canadian, Episcopal and Orthodox churches have to remember saints of old.

In fact, there are two types of saints they remember - martyrs and confessors.  From Wikipedia: "Martyrs are regarded as dying in the service of the Lord, and confessors are people who died natural deaths."

I also found out that there is usually a saint highlighted each day of the year, and so I thought it would be fun to begin to highlight these saints.  And I want you to know that we aren't going to highlight these men and women so we can worship them, or pray to them or anything like that.  But rather to remember them for the followers of Christ they were. 

So with that in mind, today, December 27th, is the day we remember John the Apostle.  Now what is interesting about St. John is that he is believed not to be martyred.  Rather the story goes that St. John was banished to the island of Patmos where he penned the book of Revelation.  Tertullian said that  John was banished (presumably to Patmos) after being plunged into boiling oil in Rome and suffering nothing from it.

Tradition says that John later died on the island of Patmos a natural death.

John is also known to have written the gospel of John, the books of 1John, 2John and 3rd John as well as the book of Revelation.