St.
James the Greater
For James there was no indication that this was the day that his life would change. The dawn for him was not the
bright beginning of a new day, but the end of long fruitless night of fishing.
As James sat mending his nets in the boat with his brother John and his father Zebedee, he must have watched in wonder as his
partner Simon brought in nets loaded with fish he had caught at the command of
Jesus. Was he shocked when he saw Simon and his brother Andrew walk away from
this incredible catch at a word from this same Jesus?
As he watched Jesus walk toward him followed by Simon and Andrew,
did he feel curiosity, fear, hope, envy?Jesus didn't pass him by but, stopping by their boat, called James and his brother John to do just what Simon and Andrew had done. Without argument or
discussion, James and John left their boat and even their father behind, and followed
Jesus.
The first thing James saw after he followed Jesus was his teaching with authority in the synagogue and the cure of Simon's mother-in-law.
We all know that Jesus was the focus of James' life from then on, but it is also evident that James held a special place in Jesus' life.
He was chosen by Jesus to be one of the twelve apostles, given the
mission to proclaim the good news, and authority to heal and cast out
demons. To be named one of the twelve James must have had faith and commitment.
But even among the apostles he held a special place. When Jesus raised Jairus' daughter when all thought her
dead, he only allowed James, John, and Peter to come with him. Even more
important when he went up to the mountain to pray, he wanted James, John, and
Peter to go with him. And it was there on the mountain they were privileged to witness what no one else had seen -- Jesus transfigured in his glory, speaking to Mosesand Elijah, as
the voice of God spoke from a cloud.
And with Simon Peter, James and John were the only ones of the apostles that Jesus gave a special name: Sons of Thunder.
It's no wonder then
that James, along with John, felt that he had the right to go to Jesus and ask him to give them whatever they asked.
As a mark of his love, Jesus didn't rebuke them but asked them what they wanted. They showed
their lack of understanding of his mission when they asked that he let one of
them sit on his rightand the other
on his left when he came into his glory. He replied that they didn't know what
they were asking. They didn't see the cross in his future, but an earthly
throne. Could they drink of the cup he would drink of? They replied that they
could. He assured them they would indeed drink of that cup.
(Matthew has their
mother asking for this favor for her sons. Despite the bad reputation their
mother got for this, it should be remembered that she too had followed Jesus in his travels, providing for him, and was one
of the women who stayed with Jesus as he was crucified when the apostles, including her son James,
had fled.)
The other apostles were furious at this request. But Jesus used this opportunity to teach all of them
that in order to be great one must be a servant.
James and John did show further lack of understanding of their friend and Lord when he was turned away by Samaritans. They
wanted to use their newfound authority as apostles not to heal but to bring fire down on the
town. (Perhaps Jesus gave them their Sons of Thunder nickname because of their
passion, their own fire, or their temper.) Jesus did reprimand them for their unforgiving,
vengeful view of their power.
But despite all these
misunderstandings, it was still James, Peter, and John that Jesus chose to join him inprayer at the Garden of Gethsemane for his final prayer before his arrest. It must have hurt Jesus that the three of them fell asleep on this
agonizing evening.
James did drink of the
cup Jesus drank of, all too shortly after the
Resurrection. Acts 12:1 tells us that Jameswas one of the
first martyrs of the Church. King Herod Agrippa I killed him with a sword in an earlypersecution of the Church. There is a story that the man who arrested James became a convert after hearingJames speak at his trial and was executed with him.
James is called James the Greater because another younger apostle was named James. He should not be accused with
this James, or the James who is a relative of Jesus, or the James who was an elder of the Church in Jerusalem and heard Peter's defense of baptizing
Gentiles. James, son of Thunder, was dead by then.
Legends have sprung up
that James evangelized Spain before he died but these stories have no basis
in historical fact.
James is the patron
saint of hatmakers, rheumatoid sufferers, and laborers.
In His Footsteps
Prayer:
Saint James, pray for
us that we may be willing to leave everything to follow Jesus as you did. Help us to become special friends
of Jesus as you were. Amen
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More about St. James the Greater from Wikipedia
James, son of Zebedee (Greek Ἰάκωβος, from Hebrew/Aramaic Yaʿqob; died 44 AD) was one of theTwelve Apostles of Jesus, and traditionally considered the first apostle to be
martyred. He was a son ofZebedee and Salome, and brother of John the Apostle. He is also called James the Greater or James the Great to distinguish him from James, son of Alphaeus. James the Greater is the patron saint of Spain.
In the New Testament
The son of Zebedee and
Salome, James is styled "the Greater" to distinguish him from the
Apostle James "the
Less", who was probably shorter of stature. We know nothing of St. James's
early life. He was the brother of John, the beloved disciple, and probably the
elder of the two.[1]
His parents seem to
have been people of means. Zebedee was a fisherman of the Sea of Galilee, who probably lived in or near
Bethsaida, perhaps in Capharnaum; and had some boatmen or hired men. Salome was
one of the pious women who afterwards followed Christ and "ministered unto
him of their substance". And his brother John was personally known to the high-priest; and must have had
wherewithal to provide for the Mother of Jesus.[1]
It is probable that
his brother had not received the technical training of the rabbinical schools;
in this sense they were unlearned and without any official position among the
Jews. But, according to the social rank of their parents, they must have been
men of ordinary education, in the common walks of Jewish life. They had
frequent opportunity of coming in contact with Greek life and language, which
were already widely spread along the shores of the Galilean Sea.[1]
James is described as
one of the first disciples to join Jesus. The Synoptic Gospels state that James and John were with their
father by the seashore when Jesus called them to follow him.[Matt. 4:21-22][Mk. 1:19-20] James was one of only three apostles whom
Jesus selected to bear witness to his Transfiguration.[2] James and his brother
wanted to call down fire on a Samaritan town, but were rebuked by Jesus.[Lk 9:51-6] The Acts of the Apostles records that "Herod the king" (traditionally
identified with Herod Agrippa) had
James executed by sword. He is the only apostle whose martyrdom is recorded in
the New Testament. He is, thus, traditionally believed to be the first of the
twelve apostles martyred for his faith. [Acts 12:1-2] Nixon suggests that this may have been caused by James' fiery
temper,[3] for which he and his brother earned the
nickname Boanerges or "Sons of Thunder".[Mark 3:17] F. F. Bruce contrasts this story to that of the Liberation of Saint Peter, and notes that
"James should die while Peter should escape" is a "mystery of divine providence."[4]
Veneration
Statue of St. James the Greater in the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran by Camillo Rusconi.
Saint James is the patron saint of Spain and, according to
legend, his remains are held in Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. The traditional pilgrimage to the grave of the
saint, known as the "Way of St. James", has been the most popular
pilgrimage for Western European Catholics from the Early Middle Ages onwards. 125,141 pilgrims registered in 2008
as having completed the final 100 km walk (200 km by bicycle) to
Santiago to qualify for a Compostela.[5] When 25 July falls on
a Sunday, it is a ″Jubilee″ year, and a special east door is opened for
entrance into the Santiago Cathedral. Jubilee years fall every 5, 6, and 11
years. In the 2004 Jubilee year, 179,944[6] pilgrims received a
Compostela.
The feast day of St. James is celebrated on 25 July on the liturgical calendars of the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran and certainProtestant churches. He is commemorated on 30 April in theOrthodox
Christian liturgical calendar (for those churches
which follow the traditional Julian Calendar, 30
April currently falls on 13 May of the modern Gregorian Calendar).
Spain
Santiago Matamoros (Saint James the Moor-slayer).
According to ancient
local tradition, on 2 January AD 40, the Virgin Maryappeared to James on the bank of the Ebro River at Caesaraugusta, while
he was preaching the Gospel in Iberia. She appeared
upon a pillar,Nuestra Señora del Pilar, and that pillar is conserved and
venerated within the present Basilica of Our Lady
of the Pillar, in Zaragoza, Spain.
Following that apparition, St. James returned to Judea, where he was beheaded
by King Herod Agrippa I in the year 44.[7][8]
The 12th-century Historia Compostellana commissioned by bishopDiego Gelmírez provides a summary of the
legend of St. James as it was believed at Compostela. Two propositions are
central to it: first, that St. James preached the gospel in Iberia as well as
in the Holy Land; second, that after his martyrdom at the hands of Herod
Agrippa his disciples carried his body by sea to Iberia, where they landed at Padrón on the coast of Galicia, and took it
inland for burial at Santiago de
Compostela.
The Codex Calixtinuspromotes the pilgrimage to Santiago.
The translation of his relics from Judea to Galicia in the
northwest of Iberia was effected, in legend, by a series of miraculous happenings:
decapitated in Jerusalem with a sword by Herod Agrippa himself, his body was taken
up by angels, and sailed in a rudderless, unattended boat to Iria Flavia in Iberia, where a massive rock closed around his relics, which
were later removed to Compostela.
An even later
tradition states that he miraculously appeared to fight for the Christian army
during the battle of Clavijo, and
was henceforth calledMatamoros (Moor-slayer). Santiago y cierra
España ("St. James and
strike for Spain") has been the traditional battle cry of Spanish armies.
St. James the
Moorslayer, one of the most valiant saints and knights the world ever had ...
has been given by God to Spain for its patron and protection.
— Cervantes, Don Quixote
A similar miracle is
related about San Millán. The
possibility that a cult of James was instituted to supplant the Galician cult
of Priscillian (executed in 385) who was widely venerated across the north of
Iberia as a martyr at the hands of the bishops rather than as a heretic should
not be overlooked. This was cautiously raised by Henry Chadwick in his book on
Priscillian;[7] it is not the traditional Roman Catholic view.
The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1908, however, states:
Although the tradition that James founded an
apostolic see in Iberia was current in the year 700, no certain mention of such
tradition is to be found in the genuine writings of early writers nor in the
early councils; the first certain mention we find in the ninth century, in Notker, a monk of St. Gall (Martyrologia, 25 July), Walafrid Strabo (Poema de XII Apostoli), and others.
17th-century interpretation of Saint James as
the Moor-killer from thePeruvian school of Cuzco. The pilgrim hat has become a Panama hat and his mantle is that of his military order.
The tradition was not
unanimously admitted afterwards, while numerous modern scholars, following Louis Duchesne, reject it. The Bollandistshowever defended it (their Acta Sanctorum, July, VI and VII, gives further sources).
The suggestion began to be made from the 9th century that, as well as
evangelizing in Iberia, his body may have been brought to Compostela. No
earlier tradition places the burial of St. James in Hispania. A rival tradition
places the relics of the apostle in the church ofSt. Saturnin at Toulouse; if any physical relics were ever involved, they might
plausibly have been divided between the two.
The authenticity of
the relics at Compostela was asserted in the Bull ofPope Leo XIII, Omnipotens Deus, of 1 November 1884.
The Catholic Encyclopedia (1908) registered several
"difficulties" or bases for doubts of this tradition, beyond the late
appearance of the legend:
James suffered
martyrdom[Acts 12:1-2] in AD 44. According to the tradition of the
early Church, he had not yet left Jerusalem at this time.[9] St Paul, however, in his Epistle to the Romans written after AD 44, expressed his intention to avoid
"building on someone else's foundation",[Rom. 15:20] by visiting Spain[Rom. 15:23][15:24], suggesting that he knew of previous
evangelization in Hispania.
The tradition at
Compostela placed the discovery of the relics of the saint in the time of king Alfonso II (791-842) and of bishop Theodemir of Iria. These traditions were the basis for the
pilgrimage route that began to be established in the 9th century, and the shrine dedicated to James at Santiago de Compostela, in Galiciain Spain, became the most famous pilgrimage site in the
Christian world. The Way of St. James is a tree of routes that cross Western Europe
and arrive at Santiago through Northern Spain. Eventually James became the patron saint of Spain.
The English name
"James" comes from Italian "Giacomo", a variant of
"Giacobo" derived from Iacobus(Jacob) in Latin, itself from the Greek Ἰάκωβος. In French, Jacob is
translated "Jacques". In eastern Spain, Jacobus became
"Jacome" or "Jaime"; in Catalunya, it became Jaume, in
western Iberia it became "Iago", from Hebrew יַעֲקֹב, which when
prefixed with "Sant" became "Santiago" in Portugal and
Galicia; "Tiago" is also spelled "Diego", which is also the
Spanish name of Saint Didacus of
Alcalá.
James' emblem was the scallop shell (or "cockle shell"), and pilgrims to his shrine
often wore that symbol on their hats or clothes. The French for a scallop is coquille St. Jacques, which means "cockle (or mollusk) of St.
James". The German word for a scallop is Jakobsmuschel, which means "mussel (or clam) of St.
James"; the Dutch word is Jacobsschelp,
meaning "shell of St. James".
The military Order of Santiago, named after James, was
founded in Spain in the 12th century to fight theMoors. Later, as in other orders of chivalry, the membership became a
mark of honor.
Kongo
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The Cross of Saint James, the symbol of the Order of Santiago; the hilt is surmounted with
a scallop.
James had a special
place in the Central African Kingdom of Kongobecause of his association
with the founding of Christianity in the country in the late 15th century.
Portuguese sailors and diplomats brought the saint to Kongo when they first
reached the country in 1483. When KingAfonso I of Kongo whose Kongo name was Mvemba a Nzinga, the
second Christian king, was facing a rival, his brother Mpanzu a Kitima, in
battle, he reported that a vision of Saint James and the Heavenly Host appeared
in the sky, frightened Mpanzu a Kitima's soldiers, and gave Afonso the victory.
As a result, he declared that Saint James' feast day (25 July) be celebrated as
a national holiday.
Over the years, Saint
James day became the central holiday of Kongo. Taxes were collected on that
day, and men eligible for military duty were required to appear armed. There
were usually regional celebrations as well as one at the capital. In some
cases, Kongolese slaves carried the celebration to the New World, and there are
still celebrations of Saint James Day in Haiti and Puerto Rico.
