The Feast of St. James

The Feast of St. James Zebedee (or St. James the Greater) celebrates one of the Twelve Apostles, and a crucial figure in the early Church. He (along with his brother St. John and his peer St. Peter) bore witnessed to the Transfiguration, was in Christ’s inner circle of trusted apostles, and was present at Pentecost.

Early Church tradition has it that after Pentecost, St. James took the Gospel to Spain where he brought many to the Faith. He eventually returned to Jerusalem where he was killed by King Herod Agrippa in the year 44 AD —one of the earliest martyrs of our faith. After death, as the story goes, his body was carried back to Spain by Christians and placed at the coastal city of Compostela. 

st%2Bjames.jpg

Since he was an early martyr of the Church, St. James’ burial place at Compostela became an important destination for pilgrimage, or a holy journey. There are records of Christians making the journey as early as 814 AD. Now, annually, more than 200,000 people walk El Camino de Santiago - “The Way of St. James.”

In iconography, St. James usually holds a cockle shell, the traditional souvenir of having been to the coast of Spain, where he is buried.

As Christians, it is important for us to remember the saints who went before us. We should be inspired by their example and stirred to greater devotion by the stories of what God did in their lives. We do not pray to or worship these men and women, but we thank God for their lives and deaths. 

As we celebrate the life of St. James the Greater, we declare that the God who worked mightily in his life is the same God who is active and present in our own lives; working in us to produce that same kind of courageous, joyful witness of our resurrected Savior.

Here are a few ways to celebrate St. James as families as neighbors, or as gathered friends:

  • Eat Spanish food for dinner… maybe just serve one Spanish olive on each plate at dinner.

  • Go on a walk or hike. For St. James was well travelled, and he is especially remembered by travelers.

  • Act-out the martyrdom of St James as a family (use the story in Acts as a script).

  • Google pictures of The Way of St. James or Santiago de Compostela Cathedral, post them around your house, and take your family on a make-believe pilgrimage.

  • During the designated prayer time in the liturgy, pray for pilgrims, travellers, evangelists, the persecuted church, or brothers (St James was the brother of St. John).

  • Watch a clip from the movie The Way - here’s the trailer.

  • Print-out or make a paper cockle shell, hide it in the house, and play a game of ‘find the cockle shell’ with kids.

Finally we exhort you to use the following liturgy either at breakfast or at dinner or before bed with your friends and/or family. It is a good idea to divide up the readings beforehand so different people can read at different times. 

PDF Liturgy for the Feast of St. James

Marshall McLuhan Plants a Church

The often quoted but, I fear, too often unheeded dictum of Marshall McLuhan is that the medium is the message. The dictum is brilliant in both its simplicity and its profundity. The way we do a thing cannot be dislocated from the why and the what (and the who, when, and where).

This is no supra-biblical lesson either. It is the truth behind the prophets’ several warnings that nations come to resemble not only their idols, but their idolatries as well. Which is to say we do not merely become the things we worship, we also become the way we worship (this is the central thesis of Smith’s book, You Are What You Love ).

This is the lesson demonstrated in the irate husband who screams “I am NOT ANGRY” at the top of his basso range while pummeling the kitchen table and calling imprecations upon those various members of his household who dared question his good-natured amiability. His actions are the verdict; his own manner condemns him, proves him wrong; his is the voice of finality raised as the proof of his family’s prior complaint. The medium is the message. And the medium is not neutral in terms of meaning.

Further examples are abundant and I need not fill up this space with them. The above is sufficient. And the implications are many.

We are concerned here, however, only with those implications which carry import for the Church. How does this dictum direct the way that we go about the mission of God’s people on the earth?

If nothing else it drives us to the biblical pattern of worship (viz. a liturgical pattern of worship) and to the rhythms and disciplines of the ancient faith: the common life of accountability, confession, and real discipleship; the fervent study of scripture; the active giving of charity and resources; the seasons of the liturgical year, marked by fast and feast; and the centrality of the Sacraments. For us these things are not mere supplements to some intellectual “interior” message of the Gospel, they are the embodiment of that message. Or, to put it another way, the Gospel is not merely a good or interesting “idea.” It is embodied allegiance to the Person of Jesus Christ the King. And knowing Him means knowing Him as He is offered in the breaking of bread, in the Word, and in the life of His Church.

For Jesus did not come merely to give us some disembodied message but to give us Himself. For he is both medium and message, and, as St. John tells us, the message came down from heaven and became incarnate.

It is not enough therefore, in our estimation, to adopt willy-nilly the practices and methods of growth from late-market America in our desire for growth and fruit. Practices born in industrial competition (fine perhaps for the market) tend to skew the message of the Gospel. Because, remember, the method is the message.

This is where the disciplines and forms of worship which marked the early church bring us so much life as a community. They work to form rhythms and practices so that ours is a community whose “methods and mediums” are in alignment with its desired “message.” Or, more tersely, sicut in caelo et in terra.