My Camino Saint

Today the Catholic Church celebrates the feast of St. James, apostle and martyr.

There are several references to James and his brother John in the Gospel in which he doesn’t appear so admirable. One is today’s Gospel reading where his mother approached Jesus with her sons asking that they “sit, one at your right and the other at your left, in your Kingdom,” causing the other apostles to become “indignant at the two brothers.” Another is when he wants Jesus to call down fire from heaven to destroy a Samaritan town that failed to offer them a proper reception, perhaps one of the incidents that caused Jesus to call him and his brother Boanerges – “Sons of Thunder.”

But James responded to Jesus’ call, dropping everything to follow him. And he was one of the first to follow Jesus to his death; James was beheaded by Herod Agrippa I.

Tradition holds that St. James preached the Gospel in Spain and that, after his death in Judea, his remains found their way to Galicia in Spain, and they were later moved to the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela.

When I arrived at the Catheral after walking the 500 mile Camino Francais from St. Jean Pied de Port, I visited first the large bust of St. James that sits high behind the main altar and then the crypt with his coffin below the altar.

I don’t know if James is really buried in that crypt. When I knelt there that’s what I pretty much said to him: “I have no idea if your remains are here or not, James, but I’m here, so let’s talk.”

Buried there or not, James is the patron saint of Spain and special friend to pilgrims on the Camino. And so on this day I honor James and ask for his friendship and inspiration. And I ask for his alacrity in following Jesus, and his strength to do so to the death.