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Catholic Saints
St. Andrew the Apostle
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All saints had a story before they met Jesus. For St. Andrew, he was a fisherman. Hearing the call of Christ, Andrew and his brother Peter left everything behind to follow Jesus. Join Dr. Ben Akers and Mary McGeehan as they discuss St. Andrew, his life, and the example he provides to all Christians.
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This episode is brought to you by our friends at the Jesuit Refugee Service. They work in 58 countries accompanying and serving forcibly displaced people, providing life changing emergency assistance, education, mental health support and more to millions each year. Get to know their work, visit jrsusa.org agustin.
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You're listening to a podcast on Catholic Saints. This podcast is produced by the Augustine Institute, an apostolate helping Catholics understand, live and share their faith.
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Hi, welcome to Catholic Saints. My name is Mary Mcgeon and I am joined with Dr. Ben Akers on this episode of Catholic Saints. Dr. Akers, thank you for joining us.
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Thanks for having me. I loved that going through different saints. The Catholic Saints has been a popular video series, but also now we've been ripping the audio and making it a podcast. And so I think people are really interested in learning about the Saints. So glad to be here.
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Absolutely. Yes. We're gonna talk about St. Andrew today. St. Andrew the Apostle and the goal of the Catholic Saint episodes is to dive into the lives of the saints with the apostles. It's so nice because we have so much scripture to dive into and look to them for sorts of inspiration for our own lives today. So let us begin, I guess to start. St. Andrew, we know he is one of Jesus 12. What do we know about him in scripture? To start as a basic biographical facts. Do we know where he is from?
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Sure, yeah. So, yeah, great question. So Andrew is interesting because he is one of the 12 apostles. As you mentioned, he shows up in all four Gospels as all 12 apostles do. But he is listed in the list of apostles in two gospels as the second person listed and then in one gospel and Mark and actually the apostles, he's listed as the fourth apostle in the list. So that's kind of always intriguing when the kind of the list shifts a little bit.
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Yeah.
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We know he's the brother of Simon who becomes Peter. He's a fisherman like Simon. That's when Jesus calls him. We also know, and we could go through these scenes too, he's a initial follower of John the Baptist before he becomes a follower of Jesus. And in John's gospel in particular, he has three key moments where he introduces someone to Christ.
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Okay.
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And then. Yeah, and then he'll die a martyr at the end of his life.
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Okay. I would be curious to see. It seems as if there's different ways the scripture writers depict the call of Andrew by our Lord. So I'd be curious, why are there differences and how do we kind of put them together? And what can we learn about his personality from the little verses that he's depicted.
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Yeah, let's dive in. So we can. One of the. We can go to a couple passages, but we just start with the Gospel of Matthew. If you want one of the calls where we know he's a fisherman. This is in Matthew, chapter four.
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Okay.
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And then we'll go to John. But in looking at Andrew, it's interesting. Andrew is the brother of Simon. So we see this where if you want to follow along, we're in Matthew, chapter 4, verse 18. He walks by Jesus, walks by the Sea of Galilee. He sees two brothers, Simon, who's called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea for their fishermen. In case you didn't know what fishermen do. They cast things into the fish. Yes, nets into the sea. You know, the detail. The idea is that they're actually in the water, probably throwing the nets. So they're in there doing their job. And Jesus said to them, follow me and I'll make you fishers of men. Immediately they left their nets and followed him going on from there. He saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, John, his brother, mending their nets. And Jesus calls them and they immediately follow him as well. One of the things that we can just start with of the names is Simon is a Hebrew name and Andrew is a Greek name. So it's very interesting to have two brothers in the same family. And one has a Hebrew name, Jewish name, and one has a Greek name.
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Andrew is the Greek one.
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Andrew is a Greek name. Yeah. Andrew in Greek means like manly or strong, courageous. Simon in Hebrew I think means like God hears.
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Okay.
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Like Shema, the great Shema in Simeon. So when looking at this, we just see how much Greek culture has influenced even the first century. So they're in. They're a Jewish family, yet they're living up in Galilee in the northern part of Israel, which is Greek language based Greek culture. And so there's even an openness to Greek culture. It seems to be in their own family.
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Okay, that is interesting.
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This name will be significant later for in John 12 when a certain group decides to pick Andrew to introduce him to Jesus.
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Okay, stay continued.
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To be continued.
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Do we know, you mentioned their brothers. Do we know who was older, who was younger? I said somewhere that there's. The father's name is John. I believe in a different scripture, but yeah. Do we know the birth order?
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No, no, we don't. But one of the things I think we can from this, speculate from this is not even speculate. We just surmise from drawing it out of the text is he hears Jesus come into his life. He hears Jesus call very personally, Andrew, you come follow me and I will make you a fisher of men. And he immediately leaves the boat, leaves his father, leaves the business and to follow Christ. So that's always impressive to me. When you have someone in their life, especially the apostles and the saints, there's always sometimes that kind of the drop the nets moment where like now I'm leaving this to then go follow you and be a disciple.
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Yes. It's just interesting in this particular scene, the mysterious immediate conviction like that you mentioned that he had, which I would. You could just then he's a faithful practicing Jew, open and seeking with such a response as that.
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One of the other things is, you know, just applying this to our own life is when Jesus says, he calls us and he invites us to have a relationship with him, and then he calls us, he gives us the vision of where he wants us to follow him. He gives us the mission, I'm going to make you fishers of men. But he also gives us the sense of, you know, I will make you the fisherman. You're not a fisherman, you're not a fisherman yet, but I will make you a fisherman. That we have to be created and formed in such a way, discipled to learn how to do the things that Jesus wants us to do. And then we're given a decision and he makes the decision to follow Christ. So you have vision, mission and decision. When you see these call stories in the New Testament, beautiful. So we also, you know, we, you know, trying to put the together of where this happens, this could follow the scene. And I think it probably does from John's Gospel. So you want to turn to John's Gospel because there's another calling scene of Andrew and our Lord that you alluded to before. And this is at the beginning of John's Gospel. So this is now we're. We're in John's Gospel. We are the. In John chapter one, if you want to follow along. John chapter one, verse 35, and we've met John the Baptist. John the Baptist is talking about Christ who's going to come after him, and that's who they should follow. And In John chapter 1, verse 29, if you follow there, that the next day when he saw Jesus coming toward him, he said, behold the Lamb of God. This is John the Baptist sees Jesus coming towards him, his cousin, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. This is he of whom I said, after Me comes a man who ranks before me and he who was before me. So John the Baptist is preaching and teaching. He has a group of disciples and he says that that's the Lamb of God. And then he says it again. John, chapter one, verse 35. The next day, John was standing with two of the disciples. So we don't know two of his disciples. So John the Baptist disciples, 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, right? Jesus turned and said, saw them following and said, what do you seek? And they said, rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying? And he said, come and see. They came and stayed with him that day, for it was about the 10th hour. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his brother. Simon had 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 Peter, this beautiful call scene. And so what do we learn from this about the facts of Andrew's life is he's a follower of John the Baptist. So he's a seeker. He's really trying to learn how God has revealed himself. How is God going to answer the questions, the promises that he had given the whole Old Testament people of Israel? And John the Baptist is a foreshadowing of that and telling you that the person who's going to fulfill all these things is here. He's coming, he's the Lamb of God. And Andrew doesn't stay with John, but goes to follow Christ. And there's a beautiful, you know, they're kind of stalking Jesus a little bit. And Jesus says, you know, what do you seek? And they say, you know, where are you staying? Where do you. The Greek there in the, in the text is actually where you abide and where you remaining.
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Interesting.
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He says, come and see.
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Interesting. In a quick allude to being from Bethsaida or Bethsaida, when Beth, doesn't that also mean home? I just wonder if there's any connection with, like you were talking about how he. He abided with the Lord. Does where they're from have any revelation for their mission as well?
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It's going to be interesting. Yeah, because in Mark's Gospel, because, yeah, here they're. They're in Bethsaida. If you look at John, chapter one, verse 44, Philip from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter, it's Actually Peter and Andrew are actually going to. Peter's going to make his home Capernaum. That's where his mother in law is. And so Capernaum actually does have significance. It means town of comfort, which was an echo Back to Isaiah 40, the very first, the good news of Isaiah 40. Comfort. Comfort, my people.
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Interesting.
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So that Nahum. Nahum. So town of comfort in looking at. And then Jesus in Mark's gospel then says he makes the home his own. And so Jesus goes and makes his home in Peter's house, which is in the town of comfort. So that is a significant. Okay, yeah.
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And then one other question on the passage you just read when John the Baptist says those famous Eucharist declines, which we pray today. Behold the Lamb of God. How did Andrew know those words meant something so significant was where in the Old Testament is he referring to or why did, why did those, why did that phrase matter to Andrew?
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Sure, yeah. There's a lot in the Old Testament that we can draw from. First thing, we see lots of. We see the first kind of reference of a lamb and sacrifice would be allusion to the story of Abraham in Genesis 22, where he takes Isaac up on the mountain and God doesn't accept the sacrifice of Isaac his son, but he sees a ram in the thicket. But Abraham had prophesied before in Genesis 22, when his son's like, I see fire, I see knife, I see a sacrifice. Dad, what are we going to sacrifice? God himself will provide a lamb for the sacrifice. God himself will be the lamb for the sacrifice is how this will ultimately be fulfilled in Christ. But that's where the first kind of. On this mountain, there's going to be a lamb that's provided by God that will be sacrificed. So that's at Mount Moriah in Genesis 22. So then as you go through the story of salvation history, everyone's looking for the lamb that God will provide, that will be sacrificed on this mountain. So God provided a ram on that mountain to be sacrificed, but it's not a lamb. This is why, when then Mount Moriah becomes part of the mountain range of where the temple is built. And so the temple, every morning, the sacrifice, the Tamid sacrifice, they would blow. They would sacrifice in the a.m. and the p.m. a lamb. So they're on the same mount, sacrificing a lamb, asking God, when are you going to provide the lamb for the sacrifice on this mountain? Like Abraham prophesied? And they would announce the sacrifice and announce prayer with a ram's horn, a shofar to Remind them, like, remember, you provided a ram, but you haven't provided a lamb yet. Yes. And so then you have Isaiah's prophecy where Isaiah talks about, like a lamb led to the slaughter, he will open his eyes. So we're looking for a suffering servant that will be like a lamb. And then we get, behold, the Lamb of God here in John. That's a lot of Old Testament crunched in a little space. But what they're looking for is, is this the Lamb of God? This is the lamb that's provided by God. Will he be sacrificed on the mountain? And the answer is yes, because Mount Moriah is also the same mountain range as Mount Calvary.
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Okay.
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So God does provide the lamb for sacrifice on the same mountain.
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Thank you.
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So that's what Andrew is like. You know, his brain is connecting all these things as he's.
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As a disciple of John the Baptist. He hears that and he knows that's an immediate indicator.
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That's right.
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This person he's pointing to.
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Yep.
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Great.
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One of the things that strikes me about this scene, too is just how Andrew spends time with our Lord. He, John, who's writing, is the other disciple, John the Evangelist. So John and Andrew are friends. You know, we see them called the call scene that we did first. James and John are brothers. Peter and Andrew are brothers. They're brothers that spent time together. They're brothers, possibly business together. But here we have John the Evangelist and Andrew that are here and they meet Christ and they remember the day and the hour. It's the tenth hour. Life changed. From this point on, when you have an encounter with Christ, you remember it, it sticks in your memory. And so it's the 10th hour. This extra detail just kind of say, like this hits home. And the very first thing that Andrew does is he goes to his brother Simon. He wants to tell someone about this good news. So one of the things that we're going to see as we go through the rest of the scenes in John's Gospel is Andrew is a saint. Fulton or blessed Fulton Sheen or venerable Fulton. Sheen. I forget what he is. Fulton Sheen called him the great introducer. He's known. So built into his. He has an apostolic spirit to want to go and tell others about Jesus. And here in John's Gospel is the first scene where he does that. He first goes and tells his brother Simon.
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Beautiful. Great application for us today.
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Yeah.
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What is the third depiction of the invitation?
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Yeah, so we go to John. Yeah. So John, if we go to John, chapter six, we're in the multiplication of the Loaves and fishes. And we see this, we know the 5,000. The five loaves, two fish that feed the 5,000, plus all the other others that are there. And Jesus is teaching. And Jesus said to Philip, so John, chapter, if you want to follow John 6, 5. Lifting his eyes then he sees that a multitude was coming to him. Jesus said to Philip, how are we to buy food so that these people may eat this? He said to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. So I love this, that Jesus wants the apostles to feed. Another passage is like, you give them something to eat. Jesus knows what he's going to do. He's going to multiply loaves and fishes. But he wants the apostles to think about it and come to him with a solution, come to him with ideas. And Philip says, look, with 200 denarii would not buy enough bread for each one of them to get a loaf. Little one of his disciples. And we're in. John, chapter six, verse eight. One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, there's a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they among so many? Jesus says, all right, watch. But I love this. That, you know, Andrews has already kind of. Okay, do you have to go figure out how to feed these people? He's found somebody. And this young boy is. He actually brings him forward to meet our Lord and says, all right, I don't know if this is a solution, because what is so little for so many? But this guy has five loaves and two fish. So he introduces the boy to Christ, and then this incredible miracle happens.
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Okay. Another beautiful introduction.
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Yes.
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All right, thank you. That is fascinating. Do we know why Jesus calls his brothers, why he calls so many of our apostles in Paris? Yeah. Okay.
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They had good parents, I think also, we know they're gonna send it two by two. But I think sometimes just holiness comes in pairs. If you look at the saints, Francis Sinclair, Teresa of Avila, John on the cross, and they're not siblings like James and John and Peter and Andrew, but that sometimes, you know, holiness is often found in family groups and in pairs. And so.
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Interesting.
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Yeah.
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Into the passage you just read. I do think it's interesting how Jesus is asking for their participation, like you mentioned, and on a human level, he's thinking very practically, here's a boy with some food. And then how Jesus makes that small offering, you know, even abundant divine solution through his own masterpiece and providence.
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Yeah. If you read the passage closely, it's actually Jesus blesses the bread Blesses the fish and then gives it to the apostles, who then give it to the crowds. So actually the miracle is taking place at the hands of the apostles and they have to keep going back to Jesus to get the source. So that's a good lesson for us spiritually. We always have to go back. You know, miracles can happen at our hands. But because of our connection to Christ.
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Interesting. Beautiful. All right, well, we, we've dived into the invitation and the call of Andrew. What do we know about him in the early church?
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Well, there's another passage.
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Oh, John 12.
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John 12.
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Great.
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So in John chapter 12, we're at, you know, the whole, the whole Gospel of John, John is building up for the hour. You know, my hour's not yet come, but it's coming. My hour's not yet coming. Yeah, it's not here, but it's coming, you know, so kind of these passages that go through John's gospel and a key moment where we see Andrew introducing someone to Jesus, a group of people to Jesus, then Jesus will say, now is the hour. So this is what we're looking for. So we're in John, chapter 12, verse 20, John 12:20. Now, among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So we don't know. These could be God fearing Greeks. So people that aren't Jewish ethnically, but they want to practice the Jewish faith, they're coming to Passover, they're coming to Jerusalem for the passover. So they're coming to worship the one true God. So they come to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee. So Philip is the Greek name. So these are the two Greek names in the apostles, Philip and Andrew.
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And Andrew.
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Okay, so they go to Philip. Hey, you have the same name of us. You speak Greek. Tell us. Sir, we wish to see Jesus. A beautiful prayer. Sir, we wish to see Jesus. Philip went and told Andrew, Andrew went with Philip and they told Jesus and Jesus answered them, the hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified. So this beautiful passage of the Greeks go to Philip. Hey, you have a name like us. And then Philip's like, oh, how am I gonna get him to Jesus? I'll go to Andrew. Cause I know Andrew's known for introducing people to Jesus. Interesting. So Philip goes to Andrew, Andrew brings them to our Lord and says, now's the hour. And here's the spiritual principle that our Lord gives us. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it Dies, it bears much fruit. That is the principle of the Christian life, death to self, so that you can bear life. And so this revelation is given to us because Andrew goes and brings people to Jesus.
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That's beautiful. That makes sense. I always sometimes empathized with Andrew because here he introduces his brother, who then kind of receives the spotlight for the rest of the life of the Lord. But it does also make sense with the mission that he was given, to be that introducer and then almost fade a little bit in the background.
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Well, no, the interesting point that's what I was gonna bring up is like, yeah, spiritual application. How would you feel if you were the one who found Jesus and you go and tell others about Jesus and now you're not in the inner circle. So the inner circle that Mary was talking about was Peter, James and John are the inner circle of our Lord. So James and John, the two brothers, are in the inner circle. Yes, Peter's there. The other part, Andrew's not. Andrew's number four got the short end of the stick. Yeah. So. Right. I mean, it's a good point of reflection. And how will we. You know, I think we'd all be very happy to be close to our Lord.
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Yes, absolutely.
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There's one scene so we had the inner circle. This inner circle. Peter, James and John, they get special access to certain miracles. They get to see the raising of Jairus daughter. They get to go to the Mount of Transfiguration. They're in the agony in the garden with our Lord. So there's, like, special moments that they get. There is one moment recorded in Scripture where Andrew is brought in that's given to us recorded in Mark, chapter 13. So in Mark, chapter 13, Jesus gives the prophecy again. Near the end of his life, the last week of his life, he gives a prophecy that they're looking at the temple like, this is an amazing building. He says, guess what? No stone will remain after, you know, in a generation. They say, what? And then Jesus gives this apocalyptic discourse. It's called the Discourse on the Destruction of the temple in 70 AD and then. Which is a foreshadowing of the destruction of the world. So Andrew is in that. It says Peter, James, John, and Andrew is part of that conversation.
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Okay. He made it.
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Yeah. So, I mean, one of the lessons for us is that, you know, we can ask Jesus hard questions. This is Pope Benedict XVI reflecting on this in his Wednesday audience on St. Andrew said, we can ask Jesus hard questions, but we must be prepared for the surprising sometimes responses we get. And to receive them like it was a hard teaching. No. Guess what? This building is not going to remain. Guess what? The city is going to go away.
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Yes.
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And someday the whole world is going to be destroyed. So it's a tough teaching, but it's important to go to Jesus with the questions, but also to be receptive to what he teaches us.
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Yes. And detached enough to receive with actual answers.
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Yep.
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C
No, that's beautiful. And when you're talking about the humility almost of Andrew, it reminds me of in the Litany of Humility, where you pray that others may grow holier than I as long as I grow as holy as I should. Or something along those lines. Just with Andrew and Peter, it seems that humility was exemplified as well in that brotherhood. But that didn't detract from the Lord's particular mission he had for Andrew as well.
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There's a great short sermon by St. John, Henry Newman, called the World's Benefactors. It's a sermon he gave on the feast day of St. Andrew, which is November 30th. So he gives a sermon and the world's benefactors, and he goes through kind of litany of just, hey, do we know the guy who invented how to harvest grain? Do we know the person who invented the wheel? All these things that change the world. We don't always know their names. And also often we don't know the parents. We don't know Andrew and Peter's mother's name. No, we know the father's name, as you mentioned, John. So he said that sometimes the way that God works is that the world's benefits factors. The one who benefit the world and build up the world, even the spiritual world, are those that we don't always know their name. And so Andrew is that humility and that humble person behind.
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C
Yeah, it's true. And the anonymity where you see his name at the very beginning with a lot of the Gospels, but then towards the end, he's just one of the disciples, where it's just depicting the Lord and His teaching. So personal application I was pondering was when you are called into discipleship, may your life be reflecting the teaching of the Lord and following him, even if your individual names no longer recognize that is the true path of discipleship that he models for us.
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No, that's great as well.
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C
I was going to ask, do we know anything about St. Andrew's death or what he did in the early church after the Lord's resurrection?
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So there's a couple legends. We don't know exactly where he goes after The Ascension and Pentecost and the sending go therefore, make disciples of all nations. Eusebius, who writes the church history, seems to allude that he goes somewhere near Russia, which is one of the reasons. Russia, Ukraine, Russia, Romania, that area. This is why they pick him as a patron. One of the other that seems to be more sound legend is that he goes to the east, he goes to Greece, and that he's martyred in Greece in 60 AD in a town called Patras. And he's in the town and he's crucified. So he's crucified and he says, I'm not worthy to be crucified like my Lord. And so they crucify him on an X shaped cross. So that might remind us of Peter, his brother, who was also crucified in Rome upside down. He said, I am not worthy to be crucified like our Lord. So they flip the cross and crucify him upside down. So it's interesting that Peter and Andrew share the same fate, crucifixion. This is what we call St. Andrew's Cross, which is a X. So in art, if you can identify him, is you'll see him with an X shaped cross. So that's always Saint Andrew. And then if it's upside down cross, that's Peter. But both get to conform in their death literally to the crucifixion of our Lord. But spiritually for us, that's how we're supposed to live. Anytime that we have a cross in our life to unite it to our Lord's cross is how it's going to bear fruit. That's how we're going to be. The grain of wheat that falls to the ground and bears fruit is by uniting our death to self. And even if it's our martyrdom and death to the death of our Lord.
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C
That's a great application. Beautiful. Can we still see the relics of Saint Andrew today?
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Andrew was then. So he's killed, he's made the patron of Constantinople, which is interesting. That's one of the biggest, the five patriarchs that you have. So Rome and, and Constantinople as friends. Rome represented by Peter, Constantinople as Paul. Sorry, by Andrew. So you have kind of this beautiful connection of the two brothers. Two sister brother churches. Yeah. So his relics are taken to different places. I think his body ended up in Almali in Italy at a church down there. And his head used to be in the Vatican in St. Peter's Basilica. And as a gesture of ecumenism, of, you know, of serving our, you know, churches that aren't in full union with Rome, I think it was Pope Paul VI gave the head to the Patriarch of Constantinople to show, like, goodwill. Like, I know he's your patron. Here you go. The relics we have remaining.
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C
That's generous.
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Yeah, it is, yeah.
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C
Fascinating.
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A
So St. Andrew and one of the things that he's called. He's called. You know, one of the titles is he's called the First Called. In Greek, they call him the protoklatos. So you might be familiar with the phrase Paraclete. That comes from the Holy Spirit. The one who's called to our side. Protocolate would be the first called. So he's obviously called the first called. He's a patron saint of the rangers. I thought that was interesting. The Army Rangers.
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Oh, really interesting, yeah.
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Because their motto is Rangers lead the way. So they pick St. Andrew because he led the way in being a first follower of Jesus.
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C
I like that. That is interesting. Did you know that? I think it's interesting, too. In this first call, how is still Jesus always doing that finding and that initiating as well? Whether he's walking past or he's meeting Peter and Andrew where they are, Jesus does that finding and they both respond to his initiative as well.
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Yeah. No, if we don't show up to work. Right. They show up to work. You know, Jesus comes and calls in work. Matthew was tax collecting, meets him where they're at. Yeah, he meets and he. And he came and he found him where he was and then brought him, you know, out of that. So it's always good to do our duty, be responsible, and in the midst of that, our Lord comes into our lives, and then when he does call us. And it's not always a radical call of, like, leave your profession. Sometimes it is. People get these amazing calls like, you know, stop being a tax collector, stop being, you know, a lawyer, and I want you to come and be a priest or a religious sister. But the radical call to conversion is always the call of Christ. He always is entering into our lives and inviting us to a deeper conversion of ourselves and deeper following of Him.
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C
Beautiful. Any other spiritual applications or tidbits about St. Andrew?
- [26:33]
A
I love Andrew. I think one of the things that, you know, I think liturgically he's well situated. November 30th is his feast day. His feast day is always the closest feast day to the first Sunday of Advent. And so I always like to reflect spiritually of. He's the one who introduces people to Jesus. The whole Advent season is the whole reliving of salvation history, waiting for the coming of Christ. And so Andrew is such a great patron for Advent of okay, how am I gonna prepare myself to meet Jes and then, you know, also then introduce others to Jesus as well?
- [27:05]
C
I love that. Never noticed that before.
- [27:06]
A
Beautiful.
- [27:07]
C
Wonderful. Well, thank you.
- [27:08]
A
Sure.
- [27:09]
C
Thank you. Dr. Ben Akers, thank you for joining us. And St. Andrew, pray for us.
- [27:14]
B
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