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.

Homily for Friday, 24 August 2018‒ Feast of St. Bartholomew

Friday of the 20th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Revelation 21:9b-14; Psalm 145:10-11, 12-13, 17-18; John 1:45-51

This homily was given at St. James Church, Vernon, BC, Canada.

What is the difference between a disciple and an apostle, and how are these related to each other? Please forgive me for a somewhat academic beginning to my reflection here but, for most of the year, I live in Paris as a doctoral student and, when I am not in Paris, I teach theology courses at St. Joseph’s College at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.

A disciple, from the Greek origin of this word, is a student. We might think of related words like “discipline,” which can mean either the necessary focus on a specific area of study, or the area of study itself. The simplest, most literal meaning of an apostle, again a word of Greek origin, is one who is sent out.

I like to think of my experience as a priest; in ministry; as a Christian as one of combining roles as a disciple and an apostle, a student drawn in to learn from experts and then one who is sent out to serve, to teach, and to draw other people to Jesus Christ. We hear today from John’s Gospel about the encounters between Philip and Nathanael and then Nathanael and Jesus, how Philip and Nathanael combine roles as disciples and apostles.

John introduces Philip to us as a newly-called disciple. He is Jesus’ newest student, and he is a straight-A student! Philip is quick to understand that his role will not only be a passive one as Jesus’ student, but an active one, an apostolic one, of seeking and attracting other disciples to the Lord. And so Philip immediately finds Nathanael, one whose standout characteristic is transparency: “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit,” Jesus says later about Nathanael.

This new student in Jesus’ class, Nathaniel, is the type of person who is honest enough to ask questions that the other students and even the teacher may not want to hear but need to hear, like, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth”? Nathaniel’s question does not faze Philip, who understands Nathanael’s quality of character and fitness to be a disciple and then an apostle. “Come and see,” Philip says to Nathanael. Come and be a disciple of this Jesus of Nazareth, “about whom Moses wrote in the law and also the prophets wrote.”

Nathanael, to his credit, takes up Philip’s invitation to be Jesus’ disciple. He starts, as Philip did, as Jesus’ disciple, at a “come and see” invitation, and Jesus transforms him, as he did Philip, into an apostle: “You will see greater things than these.” It is almost as though Jesus says to Nathaniel, “Not only will you see greater things than what you are experiencing now, but I will send you out to attract still more people to these greater things; to God; to eternal life.”

Jesus and Philip the Apostle extend to us the same invitation as they once did Nathanael: First, “come and see,” and then go, be sent out to attract still more disciples to Christ. Seek out and attract those who will, without deceit, ask a difficult but necessary question in today’s world: “What good can come out of the Church; out of being a Christian today”? And then may we be the good that attracts to Christ good people, disciples who will be formed by Christ through us into apostles; people who will “come and see” and then be sent out ourselves to serve the Lord.

Homily for Wednesday, 25 July 2018‒ Feast of St. James

Wednesday of the 16th Week in Ordinary Time

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

Does anybody, like me, wonder why readings were not chosen for this feast of St. James that could have cast this great Apostle in a better light than our readings today do?

St. James is the only one of the twelve Apostles whose martyrdom, under Herod Agrippa, is explicitly accounted for in the New Testament. Could the Church not have chosen for today’s feast the passage from Acts 12 in which James becomes the first of the Twelve to give his life for Christ? This event is alluded to in our Prayer over the Gifts today. We will pray in a few moments: “Cleanse us, Lord, by the saving baptism of your Son’s Passion, so that on the feast of St. James, whom you willed to be the first among the Apostles to drink of Christ’s chalice of suffering, we may offer a sacrifice pleasing to you.”

And yet the Church gives us a Gospel reading from Matthew today in which James, along with his brother John, through their mother, try to ensure their own prestigious places, one at Jesus’ right and the other at his left, in the Kingdom of Heaven. James and John seem to have understood nothing about what this “saving baptism of [our Lord’s] Passion,” or what we might term the Universal Call to Holiness, entails for any follower of Christ; for any Apostle, sent into service in our world in Christ’s place.

In his apostolic exhortation, Gaudete et exsultate (Rejoice and Be Glad), Pope Francis connects the Universal Call to Holiness to a Christian’s acceptance of suffering and humiliation in a remarkable way. Pope Francis says in Gaudete et exsultate: “Humility can only take root in the heart through humiliations. Without them, there is no humility or holiness. If you are unable to suffer and offer up a few humiliations, you are not humble and you are not on the path to holiness. The holiness that God bestows on his Church comes through the humiliation of his Son.”

Understandably, the other ten Apostles become angry with James and John for seeking the prestigious places in the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus’ question to James and John is crucial in today’s Gospel: “Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink”? Jesus’ question to James and John is so significant because he asks the same question of us today: Are we willing to suffer misunderstanding and ridicule for our faith, if not outright persecution or threats to our lives, which are rare in a secularized society like ours but still affect so many of our Christian sisters and brothers in our world?

At some point, St. James grew from seeking prestige for himself, not understanding that seeking prestige over others is inimical to the Kingdom of Heaven, to becoming the first of the twelve Apostles to accept suffering and death for Christ. And so today, we do not celebrate somebody who was perfect throughout his life (except that, by celebrating the feast of St. James, we celebrate Jesus, who was perfect). No, we celebrate the imperfect St. James, one whom the Lord perfected until he was able to drink Christ’s cup of suffering and death; until he was fit for eternal life. And we celebrate ourselves, insofar as we are willing to grow in perfection, holiness through humility, as St. James did, until we enter the Kingdom of Heaven.