There’s
something special about St. James. Of the twelve apostles – next to St.
Peter – he may have the biggest following. Peter has a great basilica
named for him, it’s true – built over the place on the Vatican Hill
where he was put to death – a basilica we think of as the geographical
center of the Catholic Church. But St. James has a great basilica named
for him, too: at Santiago de Compostela in Spain, where legend says that
he once preached the gospel and later was buried, and where pilgrims
have been flocking to pray ever since the ninth century.
There’s something special about St. James.
His tomb and his story have attracted an incredibly diverse procession
of pilgrims down through the ages: the emperor Charlemagne; wave upon
wave of medieval Christians who went to Compostela when they couldn’t
get to Rome or the Holy Land; the great 18th-century Anglican reformer
and hymn writer, Charles Wesley, who never went to Compostela but
honored St. James with one of his many hymns; and then there are the
countless contemporary pilgrims from all over the world, believers and
non-believers alike, who take a month or more out of their lives to walk
the Camino, the road to Santiago de Compostela, hoping in the process to
discover their deepest selves.
There is something special about St. James! For
us, St. James is special because he is our patron saint, and a very
approachable saint he is because, unlike some saints who seem
super-human, there is no doubt St. James’ humanity. St. James is a hero
but a very human hero. Like his brother John, James was a fisherman, but
I find it hard to think of John with the smell of fish about him – John
seems too other-worldly, too spiritual for that. But not James. I can
picture James straining at the nets, hauling in the catch, salty in
language as well as in smell! Jesus called James and John “the sons of
thunder,” but it’s easier to picture James as the one with the
thundering temper.
James was a hero but a human one. He, along
with John and Peter, had those privileged moments with Jesus that were
denied the other nine. They were the ‘inner circle’ who got to see great
things. They got to see Jesus raise the daughter of Jairus from the
dead, and Jesus transfigured on the mountain top, and Jesus in his agony
and sweat in Gethsemane. Privileged moments, divine moments, even. A
more human moment came in today’s gospel when the mother of James and
John played the perfect Jewish mother by trying to snag seats in glory
for her sons, the apostles. Not that the two sons were entirely
disinterested in the matter! Depending on whose gospel you read, the
mother was the instigator, or the two boys made the request on their
own. Human heroes, in any case!
Another human moment for James was the moment
of Jesus’ passion and death. James has a very low profile here. So
low that he disappears. Not Peter. Peter fled but then snuck back long
enough to deny his master, later dissolving into tears of repentance.
And John, alone among the apostles, stood at the foot of the cross along
with Mary. But James is nowhere to be found. I find something very human
in that – something I can relate to. Can you?
Most of the rest of James’ story – except for
the story of his death at the hands of King Herod that we heard in
today’s reading from Acts – is legend, a legend so powerful that for
twelve-hundred years it has prompted an endless procession of pilgrims
to Compostela, the Field of Stars, in a remote corner of Spain.
And that leads me to the other thing that makes
St. James so special. Not only does he appeal to our need for a
very human hero, he also speaks to the pilgrim in each of us. For
the Church honors St. James as the patron saint of pilgrims.
One of the great metaphors for the life of
faith is the metaphor of the pilgrimage. Life is a pilgrimage and it can
sometimes be a lonely one. Is it surprising, then, that people should
seek a partner and a patron on that pilgrimage? And is it surprising
that they should turn to James who was himself a pilgrim, James, who
took to heart Christ’s command to carry the gospel to the ends of the
earth, journeying to far off Spain to preach the gospel, and then
journeying back to Jerusalem where he fell to Herod’s sword?
Jesus’ words in today’s gospel come to mind:
“Can you drink of the cup of suffering I drink from?” James answered yes
to that question with the same naïve enthusiasm he had expressed for a
privileged place at Christ’s right hand in the kingdom. And the
cup of suffering he did drink: his path to the kingdom was anything but
smooth: it was a steep climb. And ours can be, too, my friends. But how
good it is to make it in the company of James, our patron, stopping
along the way, as we do now, for the powerful, refreshing food of
pilgrims, the Blessed Eucharist, which gives us a taste even now of the
end of the great pilgrimage, the banquet which will last forever!
Father Michael G. Ryan
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