VATICAN - Saint James the greater teaches us “to readily heed the Lord’s call, to follow Him with enthusiasm, to be willing to bear witness to Him with courage, if necessary to the supreme sacrifice of our life”: Pope Benedict XVI teaching at general audience

Thursday, 22 June 2006

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - In his teaching at the general audience on Wednesday 21 June Pope Benedict XVI continued his reflection on the Apostles chosen by Christ during his life on earth. After Saint Peter and his brother Andrew, the Pope dwelt on the figure of James “the greater”. In fact “biblical lists of the Twelve mention two men with this name: James son of Zebedeus and James son of Alfeo, usually distinguished as James the greater and James the less. This, the Pope explained - was not meant as a measure of their holiness, but only to note the different importance given to them in the New Testament and, in particular, in the picture of the earthly life of Jesus”.
The name James is the Greek form of the patriarch Jacob. “This James, with Peter and John, is part of the privileged group of three disciples whom Jesus admits to important moments of his life”. In particular Pope Benedict XVI, cutting his prepared catechesis because of the oppressive heat in St Peter’s Square, mentioned two circumstances: James “was allowed with Peter and John to share Jesus’ agony in the Garden and the event of the Transfiguration”. At the Transfiguration James experiences the glory of the Lord, in the Garden of Olives he is faced with the Lord’s suffering and humiliation. “Certainly the second experience was for him an opportunity to grow in the faith - the Pope said -, to correct the unilateral, triumphal interpretation of the first, he needed to realise that the Messiah, awaited by the Jewish people as one who comes in triumph, was not only surrounded by honour and glory but also by suffering and weakness. The glory of Christ is achieved precisely in the Cross, in His sharing in our suffering”.
James, fortified and matured in faith by the Holy Spirit received at Pentecost, did not draw back at the moment of supreme witness: he was put to death in the early 40s of the 1st century by King Herod Agrippa, we are told by St Luke the evangelist. “The succinctness of the information, without the slightest narrative detail, reveals, on the one hand, that it was normal for Christians to witness to the Lord with their life- the Pope said - and on the other that James held a leading position in the Church of Jerusalem, also because of his role in the earthly life of Jesus”. A later tradition says he went for some time to Spain to evangelise that important region of the Roman Empire. “According to another tradition his body was taken to Spain, to the town of Santiago di Compostella. As we all know the place became the object of great veneration and is still the destination of numerous pilgrimages not only from Europe but from all over the world”.
Concluding his catechesis, Pope Benedict XVI said that much is to be learned from Saint James : “readiness to heed the Lord’s call even when he asks us to leave the ‘boat’ of our human certainties, to follow Him with enthusiasm on the paths He indicates over and above our illusory presumption, willingness to bear witness to Him with courage, if necessary to the supreme sacrifice of life … The journey not only exterior but above all interior from the mount of the Transfiguration to the mount of agony, symbolises the whole pilgrimage of Christian life, amidst the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God, as the Second Vatican Council says. Following Jesus, like Saint James, we know that even if there are difficulties we are on the right path.” (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 22/6/2006, righe 41, parole 580)


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