Saint
James the Greater by Guido Reni, ca. 1636-1638
Today, July 25, is the Feast of Saint James the Greater,
the first of Christ’s Apostles to suffer martyrdom. He and his brother Saint
John the Beloved were nicknamed “Sons of Thunder” by Jesus for their audacious faith
and desire for glory.
Perhaps it was audacious, thunderous preaching of the Word
of God from out of the mouth of Saint James, that Son of Thunder, that drove
King Herod Agrippa to order his beheading in A.D. 44—a year that also saw the
death of Herod himself while he was on a visit to Caesarea. Saint Luke tells us
in Acts of the Apostles:
On an appointed day Herod put on his
royal robes, took his seat on the platform, and delivered a public address to
them [i.e. the people of Tyre and Sidon]. The people kept shouting, “The voice
of a god, and not of a mortal!” And immediately, because he had not given the
glory to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms
and died.
Acts 12:21-23 (NRSV)
A fitting recompense for taking the
life of a chosen Apostle of Christ—yet the voice of that Son of Thunder is
eternally alive in his epistle, tempered and honed to perfection.
My brothers and sisters, whenever you
face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the
testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full
effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.
James
1:2-4 (NRSV)
I think this is the soul of martyrdom: a perfected joy,
mature and complete, that steels a believer even in the very jaws of the lion.
