25/07/2022
Today is the Feast of St James.
Born at Bethsaida in Galilee, a son of Zebedee and brother of John, the evangelist. He died about 44, the first apostle to die, beheaded by Herod. A fisherman, summoned by Jesus together with his brother Saint John. They were called the “Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17). Honoured as a favoured apostle:with Peter and John he was present at the transfiguration, the raising of the daughter of Jairus, and the agony in the garden.He was the first apostle put to death for the Christian faith.
James, sometimes called the Greater, is probably best known today through the Camino, or the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain
There is a legend that St. James the Greater, having preached Christianity in Spain, returned to Judea and was put to death by order of Herod. His body was miraculously translated to Iria Flavia in the northwest of Spain, and later to Compostela, which town, especially during the Middle Ages, became one of the most famous places of pilgrimage in the world. The vow of making a pilgrimage to Compostela to honour the sepulchre of St. James is still reserved to the pope, who alone of his own or ordinary right can dispense from it. In the twelfth century was founded the Order of Knights of St. James of Compostela.
The legend or tradition about St James in Spain comes from the 12th-century Historia Compostellana commissioned by bishop Diego Gelmírez. Two elements are central to it: first, that St James preached the gospel in Iberia as well as in the Holy Land; and second, that after his martyrdom at the hands of Herod Agrippa I, his disciples carried his body by sea to Iberia, where they landed at Padrón on the coast of Galicia, and took it inland for burial at Santiago de Compostela.
