We celebrate our parish’s patron
saint with the feast day of St James, the Greater, the Apostle. Jesus called James and his brother the Sons
of Thunder – we can only imagine that it had to do with their fiery
temperaments. Today, James’ mom asks
Jesus if her sons can sit at his side when he arrives in his Kingdom. Jesus tells them that they do not know what
they are asking, even though they say that they are willing to accept the
consequences of drinking out of the same cup as Jesus.
Tradition
has it that James traveled all the way to the Iberian peninsula, to the present
day countries of Spain and Portugal, to bring Jesus’ Good News to the
World. There are many legends associated
with St James. It is interesting that in
the Medieval times in Europe, the pilgrimage to James’ final resting place in
Spain attracted the faithful from all over the world. Charlemagne, St Francis of Assisi, King
Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, and St Bridget of Sweden were among the notables
to make the pilgrimage at that time.
George Bush’s daughter Jenna, actors Shirley MacLaine, Anthony Quinn,
and Martin Sheen, Brazilian author Paolo Coelho, and Canadian singer Loreena
McKennitt are amongst those who have traveled in modern times. Back in the Middle Ages, it was believed that
through touching and seeing sacred relics or earthly remains of holy people
that the pilgrim could transfer part of the sacredness to himself. Back in 2003 when I first made the pilgrimage
of St James, about 74,000 official pilgrims arrived in Santiago. Last year, it was 192,000, with three current
members of this parish having made the journey that year. The spirit of St James is so much alive in
our modern world today, touching lives of not only the Catholic faithful
throughout the world but also the lives of many others who are seeking out some
sort of adventure or spiritual journey.
Almost
any Christian or Catholic magazine that I pick up today has an article
wondering how we the faithful are going to approach the signs of our
times. How do we exist and flourish in
this Age of Skepticism, this Age of Secularism, this Age where our very faith
and traditions are being questioned and derided and ridiculed? Perhaps James gives us some sort of answer, of
how he and his pilgrimage accepts people for where they are at on their journey
as he draws them to the faith. He does
so out of love and out of compassion, not out of fear or anger. When the pilgrim arrives in the Cathedral of
Santiago de Compostela, one of the first things he does is hug the statue of St
James behind the altar. Almost 2,000
years after he lived here on earth, the spirit of this great Apostle is alive
and well.
Many
pilgrims get asked if we really believe that it is St James’ remains buried
there in the Cathedral. There can be
evidence cited to support this theory or to refute it. But, to me, the most important thing is that
St James is carried in the hearts of the pilgrims as they journey on his
pilgrimage to his holy city. The spirit
of James lives in the love and the faith of the pilgrims – that is all that
ultimately matters. In that sense, it really is St James who is alive there no
matter what anyone says.
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