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| Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew, Lorenzo Veneziano |
John 1:35–42
The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples; and he looked at Jesus as he walked, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned, and saw them following, and said to them, “What do you seek?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying; and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. One of the two who heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon, and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him, and said, “So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).
Catholic Exegesis:
The Second Vatican Council teaches that if we are to derive the true meaning from the sacred texts, attention must be devoted “not only to their content but to the unity of the whole of Scripture, the living tradition of the entire Church, and the analogy of faith. […] Everything to do with the interpretation of Scripture is ultimately subject to the judgment of the Church, which exercises the divinely conferred communion and ministry of watching over and interpreting the Word of God” (Dei Verbum, 12).
St. John Paul II, when he promulgated the Catechism of the Catholic Church, explained that the Catechism "is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium." He went on to "declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion" (Fidei Depositum).
Cited in the Catechism:
Commentary:
The calling of the first disciples (1:35–51)
1:35–39. Through these words of the Baptist, these two disciples are moved by grace to approach the Lord. John’s testimony is an example of the special graces God distributes to attract people to himself. Sometimes he addresses a person directly by stirring his soul and inviting him to follow him; at other times, as in the present case, he chooses to use someone close to us who knows us, to bring us to meet Christ.
The two disciples already had a keen desire to see the Messiah; John’s words move them to try to become friends of our Lord: it is not merely natural curiosity but Christ’s personality which attracts them. They want to get to know him, to be taught by him and to enjoy his company. “Come and see” (1:39; cf. 11:34)—a tender invitation to begin that intimate friendship they were seeking. Time and personal contact with Christ will be needed to make them more secure in their vocation. The apostle St John, one of the protagonists in this scene, notes the exact time it took place: “it was about the tenth hour”, roughly four in the afternoon.
Christian faith can never be just a matter of intellectual curiosity; it affects one’s whole life: a person cannot understand it unless he really lives it; therefore, our Lord does not at this point tell them in detail about his way of life; he invites them to spend the day with him. St Thomas Aquinas comments on this passage saying that our Lord speaks in a lofty, mystical way because what God is (in himself or in grace) can only be understood through experience: words cannot describe it. We grow in this understanding by doing good works (they immediately accepted Christ’s invitation and as a reward “they saw”), by recollection and by applying our mind to the contemplation of divine things, by desiring to taste the sweetness of God, by assiduous prayer. Our Lord invited everyone to do all this when he said, “Come and see”, and the disciples discovered it all when, in obedience to our Lord, “they went” and were able to learn by personal experience, whereas they could not understand the words alone (cf. Comm. on St John, in loc.).
1:40–41. The evangelist now gives us the name of one of the two disciples involved in the previous scene; he will mention Andrew again in connexion with the multiplication of the loaves (cf. 6:8) and the last Passover (cf. 12:22).
We cannot be absolutely sure who the second disciple was; but since the very earliest centuries of the Christian era he has always been taken to be the Evangelist himself. The vividness of the account, the detail of giving the exact time, and even John’s tendency to remain anonymous (cf. 19:26; 20:2; 21:7, 20) seem to confirm this.
“St John the Apostle, who pours into his narrative so much that is first-hand, tells of his first unforgettable conversation with Christ. ‘ “Master, where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They went and saw where he was staying; and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour’ (Jn 1:38–39).
“This divine and human dialogue completely changed the life of John and Andrew, and Peter and James and so many others. It prepared their hearts to listen to the authoritative teaching which Jesus gave them beside the Sea of Galilee” (St J. Escrivá, Christ Is Passing By, 108).
Those hours spent with our Lord soon produce the first results of apostolate. Andrew, unable to contain his joy, tells Simon Peter the news that he has found the Messiah, and brings him to him. Now, as then, there is a pressing need to bring others to know the Lord.
“Open your own hearts to Jesus and tell him your story. I don’t want to generalize. But one day perhaps an ordinary Christian, just like you, opened your eyes to horizons both deep and new, yet as old as the Gospel. He suggested to you the prospect of following Christ earnestly, seriously, of becoming an apostle of apostles. Perhaps you lost your balance then and didn’t recover it. Your complacency wasn’t quite replaced by true peace until you freely said ‘yes’ to God, because you wanted to, which is the most supernatural of reasons. And in its wake came a strong, constant joy, which disappears only when you abandon him” (ibid., 1).
1:42. What was it like when Jesus looked at someone? From what he says here, he seems both imperious and tender. On other occasions his glance is enough to invite a person to leave everything and follow him, as in the case of Matthew (Mt 9:9); or he seems to be full of love, as in his meeting with the rich young man (Mk 10:21); or he seems angry or sad, because of the Pharisees’ unbelief (Mk 2:5), or compassionate, towards the widow of Nain (Lk 7:13). He is able to move Zacchaeus’ heart to conversion (Lk 19:5); and he himself is moved by the faith and generosity of the poor widow who gave in alms everything she had (Mk 12:41–44). His penetrating look seems to lay the soul bare to God and provoke one to self-examination and contrition—as happened to the adulterous woman (Jn 8:10) and to Peter who, after denying Christ (Lk 22:61) wept bitterly (Mk 14:72).
“You shall be called Cephas”: naming something is the same as taking possession of the thing named (cf. Gen 17:5; 22:24; 32:28; Is 62:2). Thus, for example, Adam when he was made lord of creation, gave names to created things (Gen 2:20). “Cephas” is the Greek transcription of an Aramaic word meaning stone, rock: therefore, St John, writing in Greek, has to explain the meaning of the word Jesus used. Cephas was not a proper name, but our Lord put it on Peter to indicate his role as his vicar, which he will later on reveal (Mt 16:16–18): Simon was destined to be the stone, the rock, of the Church.
The first Christians regarded this new name as so significant that they used it without translating it (cf. Gal 2:9, 11, 14); later its translation “Peter” (Petros, Petrus) became current, pushing the Apostle’s old name Simon into the background.
“Son of John”: ancient manuscripts include variants, such as “son of Jona”.
Source: The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries. Biblical text from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain. All sources accessed using Verbum Bible Software.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and by Scepter Publishers in the United States. We encourage readers to purchase The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.
"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." St Jerome
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