James and his brother John were mending nets with their father Zebedee when the Lord called them, and they left the boat at once. With Peter the two brothers form the inner circle admitted to the raising of Jairus's daughter, the Transfiguration, and the agony in Gethsemane. The Lord named them Boanerges, sons of thunder. The Gospel of the feast is their mother's request that they sit at his right and left in the kingdom, and the Lord's question, "Can you drink the chalice that I am going to drink?" — with his warning that among his followers greatness is service, for the Son of Man came to give his life as a ransom for many. James answered that question with his life. The twelfth chapter of Acts records in a single sentence that Herod had James, the brother of John, killed by the sword; he is the only apostle whose death the New Testament reports, and it occurred around the year 44. The first reading of the feast is Saint Paul's image of the treasure held in earthen vessels, that the surpassing power may be God's and not ours. Red vestments are worn. By the ninth century a tomb venerated as his had been identified at Compostela in Galicia, and the Camino de Santiago became one of the three great pilgrimages of Christendom alongside Rome and Jerusalem. The scallop shell of the pilgrim, still worn on the road today, comes from that devotion, and July 25 is kept as a solemnity in Spain and in the churches that bear his name. He is called James the Greater to distinguish him from the apostle James son of Alphaeus, honored on May 3.

Feast

feast

July 25

feast