Homily for Thursday, 25 July 2019‒ Feast of St. James, Apostle

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 4:7-15; Psalm 126:1bc-2ab, 2cd-3, 4-5, 6; Matthew 20:20-28

This homily was given at the Kateri House Women's Residence Chapel of St. Joseph's College, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, and Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, Sherwood Park, AB, Canada.

Lately I have been helping my brother and his fiancée to plan their wedding, which will take place in September. What, though, does planning a wedding have to do with our readings or our feast day today of St. James the Apostle?

I suppose many if not all of us know the (I think usually exaggerated and unfair, if not downright sexist) stereotypes about stressed-out brides or mothers of brides at weddings. I say, in jest, that these stereotypes are unfair also because they say nothing about the groom or the parents of grooms also finding preparation for their sons’ weddings to be an exciting but stressful time, and sometimes behaving accordingly. And, if mothers of brides are somehow stereotypically highly-stressed in preparing for their daughters’ weddings, they have nothing on mothers of apostles!

Essentially in today’s Gospel James’ and John’s mother tries to ensure a place of prestige for her sons in heaven, which we even speak of today as “the eternal wedding feast.” On this feast of St. James, we hear from Matthew how “the mother of the sons of Zebedee,” of the apostles James and John, approaches Jesus “with her sons” and asks Jesus to “declare that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.” Even the other ten apostles become “angry at the two brothers” when they hear of James’ and John’s mother’s request to Jesus for her sons.

Much of what we know about St. James the Greater, as he is known because he is the first of two apostles named James listed among the names of the Twelve Jesus calls in the Gospels and, by tradition, imagined to be older than St. James the Lesser, is from texts written much later than the Biblical Gospels. Many of these later texts are more legend and popular devotion than historical fact. Devotions including the famously grueling Camino pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain are connected to St. James’ legendary success as a missionary. Many people and places are named for James (or the Spanish Santiago, Iago for short, in Spanish-speaking countries) for this same reason. Yet not only today’s Gospel but other events in our Gospels involving St. James do not view him especially kindly. In Mark’s Gospel, James and John are called Boanerges, “sons of thunder,” which may point to their quick temper or impulsiveness.

But I think we are invited on this Feast of St. James to understand that there had to be a reason why Jesus would have chosen James, or any of the Twelve, to be among his first apostles. Even within the Bible, the Acts of the Apostles places James in a leadership role among the other apostles in deciding to integrate formerly-pagan and Jewish Christians, each with their own customs that often clashed, into the one Church at the so-called “Council” or “Synod of Jerusalem.”

We know, then, that James had redeeming features; that Jesus chose him to be an apostle; that James is a revered saint and the first martyr among the Twelve Apostles. But I think it is as important that we recognize the same of us: That Jesus has chosen us, to redeem us, to make us saints with our cooperation; that even mothers, when insistent on our prestige like the mother of James and John is, will be no obstacle to our invitation to the eternal wedding feast of heaven.