We proclaim to you the Word of life - what we have heard, looked upon with our own eyes, and touched with our own hands. The Church celebrates today the Apostle and Evangelist St. John. With his brother James, they were the second pair of brothers recruited by Jesus during the initial stages of the formation of the movement. He is believed to have been the youngest of the twelve apostles, a fact that has been proposed as a contributing factor to him being the  disciple whom Jesus loved the most (he was the closest in age to Jesus). St. John is the uncontested author of the Gospel that bears his name and the book of Revelation. He is also proposed as the author of the three epistles bearing is name. St. John died in Ephesus around the year 100 AD.
Whereas the first reading from the first of the three epistles believed to have been authored by St. John can certainly be seen as celebrating St. John the Evangelist, a second look at the reading reveals that it does speak about his call as an Apostle too. For John declares that he is a proclaimer of something that they have seen and touched, something with which they have a personal relationship. Consequently, not only is he a proclaimer of a message but also a witness of what he proclaims. In other words, John says that he  knows what he is talking about and as such he is an authentic proclaimer. This is who an apostle is.
St. John and the other apostles were enthusiastic about preaching Jesus of Nazareth because of the personal relationship they had with him. They could not be easily persuaded to abandon their responsibility because of the conviction that their close relationship to Jesus gave them. They could literally describe in fine details who Jesus was and the mighty things that God was doing through him. He was no doubt the Word of life that had come from the Father. There was no doubt about it.
All of us celebrating the Apostle and Evangelist John today do not have the privilege of having “seen” and “touched” Jesus. However, we too can boast of having a personal relationship with him. For unless we have a personal relationship with him, we cannot become authentic disciples of his. We are only able to bear witness to Jesus with conviction if we too, like John, can say that we “know” and have “seen” this Jesus Christ whom we are proclaiming. Our preaching of the good news, like that of John and the other apostles, must issue from our experience of Jesus for it to be authentic.