Catholic Fire

Today, July 25, is the feast day of St. James the Greater. St. James, known as the Greater, in order to distinguish him from the other apostle James, our Lord's cousin. St. James the Greater was one of the apostles of Jesus Christ, the son of Zebedee and Salome, the brother of John the Evangelist, and, like him, a fisherman. James and John came to be called "Boanerges" ("Sons of Thunder") -- a name given to them by Jesus Himself -- due to their passionate preaching style and their evangelical zeal. James the Greater and his brother John were mending the nets on their boats on the Sea of Galilee when Jesus called them to follow Him to become "fishers of men." With Peter and John, he witnesses the cure of Peter's mother-in-law, the raising of Jairus' daughter, Jesus' Transfiguration, and Christ's Agony in the garden of Gethsemani. In his own ministry, James spread the gospel message to Samaria, Judea, and Spain. He returned to Je...

The saint of the day for May 29 is St. Bona of Pisa (1156 - 1207), virgin. Bona was the daughter of a single mother who grew up believing that her father had vanished during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, when, in fact, her parents had never married. She discovered this through a vision, which led her to Jerusalem, where her she found her father alive. She was a mystic and visionary. Bona experienced visions from early childhood of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and Saint James the Greater. By the age of ten,  she dedicated herself as an Augustinian tertiary. She regularly fasted from an early age, taking only bread and water three days a week. At the age of 14, she made the first of many journeys, travelling to see her father who was fighting in the Crusades near Jerusalem. On her way home, she was captured and imprisoned by Islamic pirates in the Mediterranean, but was rescued by her countrymen. She made pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela and to Spain nine times, ...

Today is the feast of St. James the Greater. St. James, known as the Greater, in order to distinguish him from the other Apostle St. James, our Lord's cousin, was St. John's brother, and, like him, a fisherman. He was one of the witnesses of the Transfiguration and one of those who slept through most of the Agony in the Garden. He was the first of the apostles to be martyred, being beheaded by King Herod Agrippa I to please the Jewish opponents of Christianity. He was buried in Jerusalem, and nothing more is known about him until the ninth century. At this time we learn of a tradition that the relics of St James were brought to Spain some time after his martyrdom, (perhaps early, perhaps as late as 830), and his shrine at Compostela in Galicia grew in importance until it became the greatest pilgrimage center in western Europe. In every country there are churches of St James and known, well-trodden pilgrim routes. In Paris, the Tour St Jacques marks the start of the route and th...