Friday, July 25, 2014 ...Saint of the Day: St James the Great!

St. James the Greater

Facts Feastday: July 25  Patron of Laborers

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.

To be singled out in these ways, James must have been a close and respected friend of Jesus.

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

What name would Jesus give you if he would describe who you are and your gifts?

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

More about St. James the Greater from Wikipedia

"St. Jacob" redirects here. For other uses, see St. Jacob (disambiguation).

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

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.