Fr. Roger J. Landry
Our Lady of Grapes Chapel, Meritage Resort, Napa, California
Napa Institute Board and Guild Retreat
Feast of St. James the Apostle
July 25, 2023
2 Cor 4:7-15, Ps 126, Mt 20:20-28
To listen to an audio homily of today’s homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/7.25.23_Homily_1.mp3
The following points were attempted in the homily:
* Last week I had the privilege to be in Spain and was several times along the path of the Camino de Santiago, the Way of Saint James, where last year 439,000 people from around the world, from devout Catholics to agnostics trying to find themselves, make up to a 478-mile pilgrimage to the tomb of St. James the Apostle, whose feast we celebrate today. While we’re not in Santiago de Compostela in the northwest Spanish region of Galicia where tradition says his martyred remains were brought in the first century, the feast of St. James the Greater inspires us to desire to make what I would call the true Camino, the most important Way of St. James, following his spiritual footsteps as he sought to follow the Lord’s, knowing that this sainted apostle is praying for us that we may indeed take that route.
* The Way of St. James begins at the seashore of Galilee when the apostle left his boats, his fish, his parents and his home to respond to Jesus’ call, “Follow me!,” and he kept following Jesus not only on the occasions he shared with all of the apostles, but when Jesus summoned him, his brother John and Peter, apart from the rest to cure Peter’s mother in law, to raise the daughter of Jairus from the dead, to be transfigured among them, and to pray in the Garden that, if it be the Father’s will, the chalice of suffering God the Father was giving Jesus might be taken away. For us to follow the way of St. James, we, too, must follow Jesus, leaving other things behind: to follow him to the sick; to follow him to the dead and mourning; to follow him in times to prayer; to follow him into the moments of great suffering.
* To do that, we need to have our desires, our ambitions, our longings transformed just like St. James did. Why did Jesus choose Peter, James and John from among the twelve to be the ones closest to him and his work? I think in all three cases it was their capacity for leadership, their zeal and their ambition properly understood. Peter showed that he was a real leader among the others in prayer: he was the one who heard God the Father intimate to him that Jesus was the Messiah and Son of the Living God and had the courage to say it. James and John were nicknamed by Jesus “Boanerges,” or “Sons of Thunder,” because they were the ones who out of righteousness indignation, just like Sodom and Gomorrah had been destroyed in times past, wanted to have fire rain down from heaven to destroy Samaria for its inhospitality to Jesus. They were also plainly ambitious, as we see in today’s Gospel, something that perhaps came from the fact that the two of them, like Peter and Andrew, were fishermen, helping to run their own business. We see that ambition on display in today’s Gospel, after their mother asks whether James and John could have the choicest positions in Jesus’ messianic administration. In St. Mark’s Gospel, it’s James and John themselves who ask, because it was clearly what they sought. Jesus, wanting to transform their ambition from worldly to supernatural, asks, “Can you drink the chalice I am to drink?” That’s the chalice that Jesus in Gethsemane prayed that if it be possible God the Father take from him (Mk 14:36), the chalice of suffering foretold in Isaiah’s suffering servant songs (Is 51:17; 51:22). James and John both responded with ardor, “We can” — they gave Jesus a blank check, not knowing how exactly it would be cashed — a...