Saint Philip.
(Wikimedia Commons)
Saint James The Less.
(Wikimedia Commons)
By: Dom Guéranger, O.S.B.
Volume 8.
Paschal Time.
Book II.
Two of the favoured witnesses of our Beloved Jesus’s Resurrection come before us on this first day of May.
Philip and James are here, bearing testimony to us that their Master is truly risen from the dead, that they have seen Him, that they have touched Him, that they have conversed with Him, during these forty days.
And, that we may have no doubt as to the truth of their testimony, they hold in their hands the instruments of the Martyrdom they underwent for asserting that Jesus, after having suffered death, came to life again and rose from the grave.
Philip is leaning upon the Cross to which he was fastened, as Jesus had been; James is holding the club wherewith he was struck dead.
Philip preached the Gospel in the two Phrygias, and his Martyrdom took place in Hierapolis. He was married when he was called by our Saviour; and we learn from writers, of the 2nd-Century A.D., that he had three daughters, remarkable for their great pity, one of whom lived at Ephesus, where she was justly revered as one of the glories of that early Church.
James is better known than Philip. He is called, in the Sacred Scripture, “Brother of The Lord”, on account of the close relationship that existed between his own mother and the Blessed Mother of Jesus.
He claims our Veneration during Paschal Time, inasmuch as he was favoured with a special visit from our Risen Lord, as we learn from Saint Paul. There can be no doubt but that he had done something to deserve this mark of Jesus’ predilection.
Saint Jerome and Saint Epiphanius tell us that our Saviour, when ascending into Heaven, recommended to Saint James’s care the Church of Jerusalem, and that he was accordingly appointed the first Bishop of that City.
The Christians of Jerusalem, in the 4th-Century A.D., had possession of the Chair on which Saint James used to sit when he assisted at the assemblies of the Faithful. Saint Epiphanius also tells us that the holy Apostle used to wear a lamina of Gold upon his forehead as the badge of his dignity. His garment was a tunic made of linen.
He was held in such high repute for virtue that the people of Jerusalem call him “The Just”; and when the time of the siege came, instead of attributing the frightful punishment they then endured to the Deicide they or their fathers had committed, they would have it to be a consequence of the murder of James, who, when dying, Prayed for his people.
The admirable Epistle he has left bears testimony to the gentleness and uprightness of his character. He there teaches us, with the eloquence of an inspired writer, that “works” must accompany our “Faith” if we would be just with that justice which makes us like our Risen Lord.
The bodies of Saint Philip and Saint James repose in the Basilica of The Holy Apostles at Rome. These relics are counted as one of the richest treasures of the Holy City, and there is reason to believe that this first of May is the real anniversary of their translation.
For a long period, the Church of Rome kept special Feasts in honour of four only of the Apostles: Saint Peter and Saint Paul; Saint John the Evangelist; Saint Andrew (Saint Peter’s brother); the rest of the Apostles were united in the Solemnity of 29 June, and a vestige of this is still to be found in the Office of that day, as we shall see later on.
The reception of the bodies of Saint Philip and Saint James, which were brought from the East somewhere about the 6th-Century A.D., gave rise to the institution of today’s Feast, and this led gradually to the insertion into the Calendar of Special Feasts for the other Apostles and Evangelists.
The Greek Church celebrates the memory of these two Apostles on distinct days, which are the anniversaries of their Martyrdom.
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