Feast of St. James, Apostle
July 25
This
James is named “the Greater,” or “Big James,” either because he was older,
taller or called by Jesus before “James the Less” (“Little James”).
“Big
James” and John were Zebedee’s sons. Jesus nicknamed them Boanerges, “Sons of Thunder.” They were chosen with Peter as
special witnesses—to the raising of an apparently dead child, to the
Transfiguration and to the Agony in the Garden . James, the first apostle to be
martyred, was beheaded by Herod Agrippa c. 44 A.D. A tradition says he preached
in Spain and that in the ninth century his body was taken from Jerusalem to
Santiago de Compostella, one of the most popular pilgrimage shrines of Europe.1
Their
mother’s ambition for James and John in Matthew
20:20-28 sparked Jesus’ warning to Church authorities:
You know that among the pagans the
rulers lord it over them and their great men make their authority felt. This is
not to happen among you. No: anyone who wants to be great among you must be
your servant, and anyone who wants to be first among you must be your slave (Matthew 20:25-27. Cp. Ignatius of
Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, nos.
136-147).
By
this radical rule Jesus divorced position from prestige in his Church. Why
would he set up such a principle?
2Corinthians
4:7-15 gives
us an answer. Paul, having said, “All of us, seeing the glory of the Lord… are
being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another,”
adds:
We are only earthenware jars that hold
this treasure, to make it clear that such an overwhelming power comes from God
and not from us. We are afflicted in every way…. always carrying in the body the death of
Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.
The
absence of the human is the revelation of the divine. Church officials shun
human marks of prestige so that people will focus on them only with the eyes of
faith. We reverence bishops because of the authority they have from God.
Anything that makes them look like human dignitaries is a distraction from the
truth, both for us and for them.
Humans
give power to those they think are smarter or more qualified. Position in the
Church, however, is based on the assumption one is humbly subject to God, in
touch with his Spirit and responsive toward the community. If we give Church
officials the same signs of respect we give human authorities, we will
inevitably see them as our “betters,” not as equals. So to counter the
corruption of power, Jesus tells them to present themselves as lower than
everyone else. For spiritual survival and the Church’s good, the first must
insist on being last.
Initiative:
Fear power and flee prestige. They are the devil’s recipe for pride.
Footnotes:
1Matthew 4:21,
17:1; Mark 3:17, 5:37. “Little James” was Jesus’ cousin, the son of Alpheus and
of the Mary who was mother of Joses, and Salome (Mark 15:40). Though not an Apostle, he was a leader in the
Jerusalem, community. His input led the council in Jerusalem not to impose the
religious rules of Jewish culture on Gentile converts (Acts 15:13-20). Paul gave him special prominence along with the
Apostles, consulted with him as a “pillar” of the Church along with Peter and
John, and reported a special appearance to James after the resurrection (Acts
12:17, 21:18, Galatians 1:19,
2:9; 1Corinthians 15:7). He was stoned to death A.D. 62. He, not the
Apostle, is probably the author of the Letter
of James.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please leave your comments!