Feast day: November 30

St. Andrew

Apostle · 1st century

Patron of Scotland, Russia, Greece, fishermen

Fisherman, brother of Peter, and the first apostle called by Jesus; he found his brother and said, 'We have found the Messiah.' Martyred on an X-shaped cross.

Andrew was a fisherman of Bethsaida on the Sea of Galilee and the brother of Simon Peter, with whom he shared a house and a trade at Capernaum. He was first a disciple of John the Baptist, and when John pointed to Jesus as the Lamb of God, Andrew followed him, spent a day with him, and then hurried to find his brother with the news that would change the world: 'We have found the Messiah.' He brought Simon to Jesus — and so the Church calls Andrew 'the first-called.'

As one of the Twelve he was close to Jesus throughout the public ministry. It was Andrew who, at the feeding of the five thousand, noticed the boy with five loaves and two fish, and Andrew to whom certain Greeks came when they wished to see Jesus. Quiet beside his more prominent brother, he appears in the Gospels always as one who brings others to Christ.

After Pentecost, the ancient traditions send Andrew to preach in Asia Minor and around the Black Sea, in Greece and, it is said, as far as the Scythian lands — for which the Eastern Churches, and Russia, honor him with special devotion, and Byzantium claimed him as the founder of its see.

By the firm tradition of the early Church he was martyred at Patras in Greece, crucified — and, it was later said, bound rather than nailed to the cross to prolong his agony, on a cross of the X shape that still bears his name. The 'Saltire' of St. Andrew became the flag of Scotland, of which, with Greece and Russia, he is the patron.

His X-shaped cross is on the flags of Scotland, and within the Union Jack — an apostle's martyrdom flying over nations he never saw.

“We have found the Messiah.”
— St. Andrew

Image: Peter Paul Rubens (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.

Source: newadvent.org/cathen/01471a.htm