Following Saint James in Manifesting the Life of Jesus in Earthen Vessels, Feast of St. James the Greater, July 25, 2023

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:

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 — and Jesus confirmed that they would indeed do so, but they would be made capable of that communion only through a humble acceptance of the power of the Holy Spirit after Pentecost — since we know both of them refused to drink it with Jesus on Holy Thursday night. That chalice is a death to self so that Christ can rise. It’s a will to give our life with him as a ransom for all, to become with him a servant and slave of the rest, starting from serving those “among us” rather than neglecting them to serve distant neighbors elsewhere.
• That path of self-sacrificial loving service of drinking Christ’s chalice, St. Paul tells us in today’s first reading, is paradoxically the path to life. He says that we are “always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body,” that “we who live are constantly being given up to death for the sake of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” For Christ “dying” is the process of total self-giving: “No one has greater love than to lay down his life for his friends,” he affirmed during the Last Supper. We are called constantly to live Christ’s dying, his self-giving, so that his real risen life can shine. The sufferings and crosses we have to endure, the chalices we need to drink, are opportunities for us to die to ourselves so that the love of Christ risen from the dead can become more manifested in our “earthen vessels.” The chalice we must consume may at first be quite bitter, but in drinking and living it, it can be transformed into something truly sweet and overflowing, because it is sharing in the love that makes even the most excruciating suffering bearable. That is why those who sow in tears, as we prayed in the Psalm, will reap rejoicing. This embrace of the chalice of suffering with eager love is a crucial part of the way of St. James, as we seek with Christ to become true servants of the rest, and to manifest the dying, rising and living of Jesus in our own earthly existence.
• Today at this Mass we mark with humble, grateful and fraternal prayer the first anniversary of the death of someone who sought to follow the way St. James indicates to us, Dennis Jilot, one of the real pillars of the Napa Institute Guild together with his wife Lynne. While I didn’t have a chance to get to know him along the Camino de Santiago, I did strengthen my friendship with him along the Camino de San Pablo in Malta, the Camino de Santa Lucia y de Santa Agatha in Sicily, and along the Camino de Todos los Santos in Rome. Above all, Den identified as a disciple of Jesus, someone who wanted to follow him up close, especially in his vocation as a husband, dad and businessman. With faith, he wanted to consume to the dregs whatever the Lord handed him. Sometimes it was fine Trinitas wine. A year ago today, it was the chalice that made possible his fuller incorporation into the eternal love of the Sancta Trinitas. Den had a humble, courageous, Christian love for the Cross, as we see in how he and Lynne together donated the precious Crux Gemmata, the Jeweled Crucifix, over the main altar in Christ Cathedral in Orange. As we pray for him today on his first anniversary and entrust him to the Lord who in his loving generosity gave us Den as a joyful and inspiring companion on the pilgrimage of earthly life, we ask the Lord to give the reward he gave Saint James, the true Christian ambition: the gift of eternal life and love in the communion of the saints.
• The way we learn with St. James to drink that chalice is every day at Mass, when we are given a chance to hear Christ saying, in a slightly different way each day, “Can you drink the chalice I am to drink?,” and then, after we say, “We can!,” unites us to himself so that we may follow him in giving our life as a ransom to save others’ lives, serving them and becoming great in the same manner Jesus pointed out to St. James and all the apostles. The chalice Christ wants us to drink, the cup of blessing that we bless, is this Eucharistic participation in Christ’s blood (1 Cor 10:16). Last year, Den attended Mass with Tim here at Napa before they went to Den’s and Lynne’s house in Sonoma for dinner. Little did Den know that this participation in Christ’s body and blood would be his viaticum, but the Lord knew, and so prepared Den through his Eucharistic participation in the Lord’s death and resurrection here for the definitive participation that took place in Sonoma. Jesus promised, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him on the last day” (Jn 6:54) and Den believed this.  This is the sacrifice in which St. James shared on Holy Thursday and later would celebrate for and with the first Christians. This is the source and summit of the Church’s Camino on earth. As we prepare to receive our own Viaticum, Christ-with-us-on-the-way, we ask St. James to intercede for us that, together with our beloved Den, we may follow the Camino de Santiago and the Camino de Santidad all the way to Jesus’ eternal right side where he seeks to make our chalice forever overflow.

Today’s readings were: 

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