Saint John Before The Latin Gate.
San Giovanni a Porta Latina.
Photo: 9 August 2024.
Source: Own work.
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Author: Ardeatino
(Wikimedia Commons)
Text from “The Liturgical Year”.
By: Abbot Guéranger, O.S.B.
Volume 8.
Paschal Time.
Book II.
The beloved Disciple, John, comes before us again, today. This time, he pays his delighted homage to the glorious Conqueror of Death and Hell.
Like Saint Philip and Saint James the Less, he is clad in the Scarlet Robe of Martyrdom.
The month of May, so rich in Saints, was to be graced with the Palm of Saint John.
Salome, one day, presented her two sons to Jesus, and, with a mother’s ambition, asked Him to grant them the highest places in His Kingdom.
The Saviour, in His reply, spoke of the Chalice which He, Himself, had to drink, and foretold that these two Disciples would also drink of it.
The elder, James the Great, was the first Martyr to give his Master this proof of his love; we shall celebrate his victory when the Sun is in Leo: It was today that John, the younger brother, offered his life in testimony of Jesus’s Divinity.
But the Martyrdom of such an Apostle called for a scene worthy of the event. Asia Minor, which his zeal had evangelised, was not a sufficiently glorious land for such a combat.
Rome, whither Peter had transferred his Chair and where he died on his Cross, and where Paul had bowed down his venerable head beneath the sword, Rome, alone, deserved the honour of seeing the Beloved Disciple march on to Martyrdom, with that dignity and sweetness which are the characteristics of this veteran of the Apostolic College.
Domitian was then the Roman Emperor — a tyrant over Rome and the World. Whether it were that John undertook this journey of his own free choice, and from a wish to visit the Mother Church, or that he was led thither bound with chains, in obedience to an Imperial edict — John, the august Founder of the seven Churches of Asia Minor, appeared before the tribunal of pagan Rome.
He was convicted of having propagated, in a vast Province of the Empire, the worship of a Jew Who had been Crucified under Pontius Pilate.
He was a superstitious and rebellious old man, and it was time to rid Asia of his presence. He was, therefore, sentenced to an ignominious and cruel death.
He had somehow escaped Nero’s power: But he should not elude the vengeance of Cæsar Dimitian !!!
A huge cauldron of boiling oil is prepared in front of the Latin Gate. The sentence orders that the Preacher of Christ be plunged into this bath.
The hour is come for the second son of Salome to partake of his Master’s Chalice.
John’s heart leaps with joy at the thought that he — the most dear to Jesus, and yet the only Apostle that has not suffered death for Him — is at last permitted to give Him this earnest offering of his love.
After cruelly scourging him, the executioners seize the old man, and throw him into the cauldron; but, Lo !!! The boiling liquid has lost all its heat; the Apostle feels no scalding; on the contrary, when they take him out again, he feels all the vigour of his youthful years restored to him.
The Prætor’s cruelty is foiled, and John, a Martyr in desire, is to be left to The Church for some few years longer. [Editor: “Prætor” was a Roman Magistrate.]
An Imperial Decree banishes him to the rugged Isle of Patmos, where God reveals to him the future of The Church, even to the end of time.
The Church of Rome, which counts among her most glorious memories the abode and Martyrdom of Saint John, has marked his noble testimony to the Christian Faith.
This Basilica stands near the Latin Gate, and gives a Title to one of the Cardinals.
The following Text is form Wikipedia - the free encyclopædia,
unless stated otherwise.
San Giovanni a Porta Latina (“Saint John Before the Latin Gate”) is a Basilica Church in Rome, Italy, near the Porta Latina (on the Via Latina) of the Aurelian Wall.
According to Tertullian, as quoted by Saint Jerome, in 92 A.D., Saint John the Evangelist survived Martyrdom at Rome, under the Emperor Domitian, by being immersed in a vat of boiling oil, from which he emerged unharmed. He was later exiled to the island of Patmos.
This event was traditionally said to have occurred at the Latin Gate (located on the Southern portion of the Roman Wall).
The nearby Chapel of San Giovanni in Oleo is said to be on the very spot where Saint John suffered.
The event was referred to in the Roman Martyrology, which was begun in the 7th-Century A.D., though the event was celebrated before then.
A Feast in the Roman Calendar also celebrated the event until 1960, when Pope Saint John XXIII removed most of the secondary Feasts for a Saint.[1]
The Black-Letter Day of “S. John Evang. ante portam Latinam” is still marked in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer on 6 May 6.
The Feast is likewise Celebrated by the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.[2]
