Saint James, Apostle – Readings

Commentary on 2 Corinthians 4:7-15; Matthew 20:20-28

The Gospel reading comes from Matthew. Jesus has just made the third prediction of his suffering, death and resurrection. Immediately afterwards, we are told that the mother of James and John approached Jesus with a request. When asked by Jesus what it was, she said:

Declare that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.

After the first two predictions, the disciples had been very upset at the idea of their Master being put to death by the leaders of their own people. One gets the impression here that the disciples are coming to terms with this warning and are beginning to hear the last part—that he will be “raised on the third day”. And it looks as if James and John want to be first in line for the future that Jesus is talking about. What is interesting is that in Matthew, it is the mother who makes the request, while in Mark’s account, it is the two disciples who ask the favour.

In either case, it is clear that they show little real understanding of the spirit of Jesus. He tells them, in answer to the request:

You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?

Here, Jesus is clearly referring to his coming suffering and death. Obviously, not understanding his real meaning, they reply: “We are able.” In fact, when the time comes, they will be nowhere within sight, having run for their lives.

But Jesus does say to them:

You will indeed drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left, this is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.

Yes, when the time comes they will be ready to give their lives for their Master. But even then, the places on the right and left of Jesus cannot be ‘booked’; they will go to those who most deserve them, to those who are closest in spirit to Jesus.

Not surprisingly, when the other ten disciples heard what was going on they were extremely angry. Not because they were shocked at the request, but because it was done behind their backs. One thinks that, given the chance, they would have done exactly the same!

So Jesus takes them all aside and gives them a lesson in what constitutes true greatness in his world. It is not a question of status or power. Greatness in Jesus’ world, in his Kingdom, comes to those who dedicate themselves most to the well-being of their brothers and sisters. And Jesus himself was a living example of this. He, the Son of God, came to serve and not to be served. His whole life, up to his last breath, was a mission of love and service given unconditionally to every single person. He died in shame and disgrace, a nobody. He totally emptied himself—for us. That is greatness. Of course, in time, James would learn this lesson and would follow his Master in giving his life for the sake of the gospel.

The First Reading is a wonderful passage from the Second Letter to the Corinthians. Here Paul speaks of the paradox of how the power of Christ’s message is communicated through people who are weak and are the objects of hatred and contempt.

…we have this treasure in clay jars [i.e. fragile and easily broken]…We are afflicted in every way…but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed… always carrying around in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. So death is at work in us, but life in you.

This is a picture of Paul himself, but also of James and of all the martyred missionaries in the history of the Church. They are a stimulus and encouragement for us to follow in their footsteps.

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Saint James, Apostle

James and his brother John were sons of Zebedee and, together with Peter, were among the inner circle of Jesus’ twelve disciples. The family seems to have been of a slightly higher social level than the ordinary fisherman as we are told that Zebedee had hired men to help with the fishing (Mark 1:20). James and John were, with Peter and Andrew, among the first four to be called to follow Jesus.

They also had the special privilege, along with Peter, to be witnesses of the Transfiguration (see Matt 17:1, Mark 9:2, Luke 9:28); to be present at the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law (Mark 1:29); and to observe the raising of the daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:37, Luke 8:51). After the Last Supper, it was these three who were called to watch and pray with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matt 26:37, Mark 14:33).

Jesus gave the name Boanerges, or “sons of thunder” to James and John (Mark 3:17), perhaps indicating they were somewhat headstrong and impulsive. On one occasion, recounted by Luke (9:54), when Jesus and his disciples were refused hospitality by Samaritan villagers, James and John suggested Jesus call down fire from heaven on the offenders. On another occasion, they went behind the backs of their companions, and asked for the two best places in the Kingdom. On both occasions, they showed they had yet little real understanding of the Way of Jesus.

All that changed, of course, with the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus. James would have been among the disciples when Jesus appeared to them after the resurrection and gave them their mission to continue his work. James would also have been present when the Spirit of Jesus was given to the disciples, after which they set aside all their former fears and boldly proclaimed the gospel.

About the year 44 AD, and at the time of the Passover, Acts tells us that:

About that time King Herod laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the church. (Acts 12:1)

He seems to have done this as a sign of support for the Pharisees. One of the first victims was James, the brother of John.

King Herod Agrippa I was the grandson of Herod the Great, who had tried to kill Jesus after his birth (Matt 2:16-18), and a nephew of Herod Antipas, who executed John the Baptist (Mark 6:14-29) and spoke with Jesus on Good Friday (Luke 23:6-12). He was also the father of Herod Agrippa II, who heard the defence of Paul before Roman Governor Festus (Acts 25:23-27).

James was the first of the Twelve to suffer martyrdom and the only one whose death is recorded in the New Testament. By tradition all of the Apostles were martyred, but the evidence in many cases is based on legend.

James is often called ‘the Greater’, to distinguish him from the other James, son of Alphaeus. There is a very strong tradition that he went as a missionary to Spain and that, after his death, he was buried in Spain at the town of Compostela, in Galicia (some say the name, Compostela, is a corruption of ‘apostle’, but for others it comes from campus stellarum, or ‘field of stars’). Compostela became a major place of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages and was a rallying point for Spaniards trying to drive out the Moors who had occupied a large part of the country. “Santiago de Compostela!” was one of their battle cries. (The Spanish form of “James” is “Diego” or “Iago”. ‘James’ and ‘Jacob’ are forms of the same name.) The pilgrimage to the grave of the Saint, known as the “Way of St James”, has become a highly popular pilgrimage for Western European Catholics from the early Middle Ages onwards, thus making James one of the patron saints of pilgrimage.

The 12th-century Historia Compostellana, commissioned by bishop Diego 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 Spain as well as in Palestine, and, second, that after his martyrdom at the hands of Herod Agrippa I his disciples carried his body by sea to Spain, where they landed at Padrón on the coast of Galicia, and took it inland for burial at Santiago de Compostela.

An even later tradition states that he miraculously appeared to fight for the Christian army at the battle of Clavijo during the re-conquest of Spain, and was henceforth called Matamoros (Moor-slayer).

James’s emblem was the scallop shell (or cockle shell), and pilgrims to his shrine often wore it as a 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”.

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