Feast of St. James, Apostle

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”). 

James and John were Zebedee’s sons. Jesus nicknamed them Boanerges, “Sons of Thunder.” They were chosen with Peter to witness the Transfiguration and 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. (Matthew 20:25-27. Cp. Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, nos. 136-147.) 

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.

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. 

— Fr. David M. Knight

View today’s Mass readings, Lectionary #605, on the USCCB website here

Fr. David M. Knight (1931-2021) was a priest of the Diocese of Memphis in Tennessee, a prolific writer, and a highly sought after confessor, spiritual director, and retreat master. He authored more than 40 books and hundreds of articles that focus primarily on lay spirituality and life-long spiritual growth.