We all know the story of St James the
Greater, since he is patron saint of our parish. James and his brother John, the sons of
Zebedee, were called to be disciples of Christ while they were fishing with
their father in the Sea of Galilee. They
both took up that call, which couldn’t have been an easy thing to do. James and John make an appearance in today’s
Gospel, in which we hear their mother ask if they can have the seats of honor
next to Jesus in his kingdom – one at his right, the other at his left. Jesus responds that they have to be willing
to drink from the chalice that he himself will drink from, but that the Father
is the one who will make that decision.
Jesus teaches the brothers that service, rather than honor and glory, is
the most important attribute that he wants his disciples to have.
James and John were named the “sons of
thunder” by Jesus; we can only imagine the fiery and tempestuous nature of
their personalities. We know that
tradition holds that James went to Spain in order to bring the Good News to the
world after Christ’s death and resurrection.
One would expect James to have had a welcome reception in Spain, but the
opposite is the case; he was not very successful at all at that time in making
converts. James returned to Jerusalem,
defeated and rejected, where he met his fate in martyrdom, the first of the
apostles to be put to death for the Gospel.
The twelfth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles tells us that Herod had
James put to death by the sword.
Even today, James draws people from
every walk of life ever closer to the faith that he proclaimed as they journey
across Spain as pilgrims on a journey. Last year, more than 215,000 pilgrims
officially arrived as pilgrims in Santiago.
One of the prisoners I ministered in Yazoo City once told me that he had
read that some question if it is really James who is buried in the Cathedral in
northern Spain, since according to the legend, his body was transported there
after his death in Jerusalem. My
response is that what is most important is that James lives in the hearts of
those pilgrims who journey across Spain to where his spirit is so alive in the
Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. So
many people follow James to be ever closer to Jesus in a world that more often
than not mocks our Catholic faith and see us as the enemy. James and his pilgrimage to Santiago de
Compostela is pointing people all over the world to Jesus as they walk across
the mountains, as they endure the hot sun and the pouring rain. When I hugged
the statue of St James above the high altar in his cathedral, a ritual that
pilgrims undertake when they arrive, you cannot imagine the emotion and prayers
that swelled up in my heart.
Thank you, St James the Greater, for
your journey of faith and for the testimony that you still give the world so
many centuries after your martyr’s death.
You live in the hearts of so many today.
You live in our parish in Tupelo, Mississippi. And you enliven us with the faith we have in
our Beloved Lord Jesus Christ.
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