The Feast of St. James
July 28, 2013

        The story of our patron, St. James, is loaded with legends.  One legend has it that in the ninth century when Charlemagne ruled the Holy Roman Empire, a star accompanied by celestial music led a hermit by the name of Pelagius to a stone tomb in an open field in a remote corner of Spain. The tomb contained three sets of bones that were soon identified as belonging to the apostle, St. James, and to two of his disciples.

     How those bones ever got there is itself the stuff of legend that nicely, if not altogether convincingly, fills out the story of the martyrdom of St. James that we heard in today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles.  All we know from that reading is that King Herod killed James, the brother of John, by the sword.  Legend fills in the before and after.  Legend has James, along with two companions, going to Spain to preach the gospel and later returning to Jerusalem where he met his fate at King Herod’s hands.  And legend has those two faithful companions taking the body of James back to Spain for burial, sailing on a rudderless boat but miraculously arriving in Spain in only a week, thanks to the guidance of angels. (Never underestimate the power of angels!).

     Still another legend has it that when those two companions of James eventually died, their bones were placed alongside his in the tomb where all three rested forgotten till that fateful day eight centuries later when celestial music and a star led Pelagius the hermit to the site.

     The rest is history, as the saying goes!  Not what came before, but what came after: an endless procession of pilgrims crisscrossing continents and sailing across seas to pray at what they devoutly believed to be the tomb of the Apostle.  Were they misled?  Was their devotion misdirected, misplaced?  An argument could be made to support that – one that would appeal to those of a strictly literal bent of mind.  But argument can also be made by those who find in the charming legends of St. James fertile ground for one of the great metaphors of our Christian faith – the metaphor of the pilgrimage.

     And that’s where the story of James connects with our story.  For we are, all of us, pilgrims on the great journey of faith and life, and James is our patron on the pilgrimage – James, who journeyed to the end of the earth to preach the gospel; James who inspired his faithful companions to do the same; James whose story has, for more than a millennium, been inspiring pilgrims beyond number to leave behind the familiar and the comfortable and to go to places unfamiliar, uncomfortable, untried, unknown.  For that is what pilgrims have always done and it is what we as pilgrims must also do for, my friends, pilgrimages are all about searching.  They are more about searching than they are about certainty.

     Today’s reading from Second Corinthians reinforces such thoughts.  St. Paul reminds his friends at Corinth and he reminds us that the great pilgrimage of faith we are on involves affliction, uncertainty, failure, persecution, even death – since, as he says, we carry about in our bodies the dying of Jesus, Jesus who had first to die before he could be raised up.  And Paul uses a marvelous metaphor to describe all this: we pilgrims, he says, are “earthen vessels.”  Those words call to mind the second of the great creation stories in the Book of Genesis when God scoops up some clay from the earth and, like a skilled potter, forms the clay into the shape of a man into whose nostrils God then breathes the breath of life.  And the handful of clay – the earthen vessel – immediately comes alive with the very breath of God!

     So, earthen vessels we surely are, my friends – modest in our beginnings yet exalted in our destiny.  We give ourselves nothing.  God gives us everything!

     I can’t but be personally and humbly aware of all this as I look back with gratitude on the years, twenty-five now, that I’ve been privileged to serve here as pastor.  Those two images of earthen vessel and pilgrimage tell the story, for an earthen vessel I certainly am, and a pilgrimage it has certainly been – a journey I’ve walked with you and many other wonderful people like you: fellow pilgrims all, channels of grace each one.  The journey has had its share of hills and valleys and turns in the road, but it has also had some wonderful oases, lovely green pastures and breathtaking vistas. Sometimes along the journey, I foolishly imagined that I was in charge, but in my better moments I knew that God was – and still is! 

     And the constant companion for the journey was, and is, Jesus, who has a way of showing his face to us when we least expect to see it: in a poor person, a broken person, a demanding, difficult person.  And, of course, Jesus has always been there in sacramental celebrations far too many to number. He’s been there welcoming beautiful babies on the day of their baptism; he’s been there offering forgiveness and peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, healing and hope in the Anointing of the Sick; he’s been there, too, in the tender love and commitment of young couples on their wedding day, and he’s been there gently wiping the tears of loved ones at funerals.  And Sunday after Sunday, day after day, on the great feasts and in very ordinary time, too, he’s been there as he is now making himself known in the Breaking of the Bread: food for pilgrims, Bread for our journey.

     Dear friends, on this feast of our heavenly patron, let us give thanks to God for our faith in Jesus Christ and for giving us St. James to be our patron and guide along the great pilgrimage of faith.  And let us give thanks for this parish, this incredible community of faith – this blessed if motley troop of fellow pilgrims – earthen vessels each of us, but chosen vessels, too, who carry a priceless treasure wherever we go, a treasure whose surpassing power comes from God and not from us!
  

     Father Michael G. Ryan