New York City, New York –On December 23, 2024, NBC’s Today Show featured The Saint John’s Bible Heritage Program on a special segment about St. Patrick’s Cathedral’s newly acquired Apostles Edition. NBC’s Anne Thompson spoke with Rev. Dr. John F. Ross, Executive Director of the Heritage Program, and His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Dolan Archbishop of New York about the significance of the gift to the Cathedral and New York City at large.
In the segment, Thompson points out that the Bible’s words have been “historically used to pit people against each other.” Rev. Dr. Ross agrees, and iterates, “The purpose of this Bible [The Saint John’s Bible] at the turn of a new century was to bring people together, not just across religious differences, but across the divides and the divisions that permeate our culture.”
“Its first page is written in Arabic, Hebrew, and English,” continues Rev. Dr. Ross. “The artists created a family tree of Jesus’ family in the form of a Menorah. Celebrating Jesus’ Jewish heritage but also pointing to the future by including a DNA strand that we all share as humans was the artist’s way of saying, we are all in this picture.”
Welcoming an average of six million people each year, St. Patrick’s Cathedral is the most visited church in the United States. The Apostles Edition was gifted to the Cathedral in 2024, and blessed in a private ceremony on September 30, 2024, conducted in the Lady Chapel of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
One of the goals of the work of sacred art and scripture was to imagine the Word of God in a modern context. Artists included New York’s Twin Towers and scenes from the Hubble Telescope – images that would not have been possible for medieval illuminated Bibles – in its pages.
“The Bible, of course, is ageless. I’m thinking of that every morning when I read the psalms,” said Cardinal Dolan in the segment. “The purpose of this Bible is to ignite the spirit in people of all faiths, and what we want to do is say, ‘When you come in here to St. Patrick’s, you are a part of the tradition. You are a part of something beyond us as we think of the Lord and through faith.’”
Cardinal Dolan told Thompson that he “doesn’t want this Bible to be kept and stored away from the public.” Instead, he seeks to share it with as many people as possible for many generations to come. It’s the perfect task for a Cathedral that welcomes millions of people through its doors each year.
The Saint John’s Bible: Ignite the Spiritual Imagination
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