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MEDITATIONS FOR YOUR LIFE OF CHRIST #1
This will be a monthly feature page.
Each month a new page will be created
so you have your own file of spiritual reflection in your home.
Feature Saint:
The Holy Apostle James, the Lord’s brother - October 23rd
He is called ‘the Lord’s brother’ because he was the son of righteous Joseph, the betrothed of the most holy Mother of God. When Joseph was dying, he shared out his goods among his sons and wanted to leave a share to the Lord Jesus, the Son of the most holy Virgin Mary, but his sons opposed this, not reckoning Jesus to be a brother of theirs. James, though, loved Jesus greatly and announced that he would include Him in his share, counting himself to be indeed brother to the Lord. James was, from the first, devoted to the Lord Jesus. According to tradition, he went to Egypt with the most holy Virgin and Joseph when Herod tried to kill the new-born King. As soon as he heard Christ’s teaching, he began to live by it. It is said that, during the whole of his life, he ate neither fat or oil, but lived only on bread and water, and he was chaste to the end of his days. He often kept a vigil of prayer at night. The Lord included him among his Seventy apostles, appearing to him after His glorious Resurrection, as the Apostle Paul testifies (I Cor. 15:7). He was bishop in Jerusalem for thirty years, and governed the Church of God with zeal. On the Lord’s instructions, he composed the first Liturgy, which was far too long for later Christians and was shortened by St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom. He brought many Jews and Greeks to the Christian faith, and even unbelieving Jews marvelled at his justice, nicknaming him James the Just.
When Ananias became High Priest, he decided, along with other of the Jewish elders, to kill James as a preacher of Christ. One day, at Easter, when many people were gathered in Jerusalem, the elders told him to climb up onto a roof and speak against Christ. St. James climbed up there, and began to speak to the people about Christ as the Son of God and the true Messiah, and of His Resurrection and eternal glory in heaven. The infuriated priest and elders cast him down from the roof, and he was badly injured though still alive. A man then ran up and gave him such a vicious blow on the head that his brains spilled out. Thus this glorious apostle of Christ died a martyr’s death and entered into the Kingdom of his Lord. James was sixty-three years old when he suffered for Christ.
For Consideration
God’s is the grace and ours is the toil. Let no-one, then, think that, as the holy apostles relied solely on the grace of God, it was easy for them; that they were able without effort to accomplish their great task in the world. Does not the Apostle Paul say: “I subdue my body ... lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway’ (I Cor. 9:27)? And, in another place, does he not describe how he spent his life in ‘perils, in weariness, in painfulness, in watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings, in cold, in nakedness’ (II Cor. 11:26-27)? The holy Apostle James ate only bread, and very little of that; he slept very little, and spent his nights in prayer. He knelt so much in prayer that the skin of his knees became as hard as that on the knees of a camel. This brother of the Lord prayed with tears and sighs, not only for the Church that he governed but for the whole world. Even when he was thrown down from the roof of the Temple by the wicked Jews and terribly injured, the holy Apostle did not for one moment forget his debt to God and man. Summoning his last strength, he pulled himself to his knees, stretched out his hands to heaven and prayed to God with all his heart, saying: ‘Lord, forgive them this sin; they don’t know what they are doing.’ While he was thus praying, evil men began stoning him on all sides. Seeing this, one man cried out: ‘Stop it; what are you doing? This just man is praying to God for you, and you’re killing him!’, but that should from a single goodly soul could not hold back the accustomed evil-doing of the butchers from slaying the saint of God.
The apostles, then, did not just lean on grace but, alongside it and interwoven with it, invested almost superhuman efforts in showing themselves worthy of God’s grace. -Taken from “The Prologue from Ochrid”
Quote of the Month:
“Don’t be afraid of anything, ever. And do not grieve. As long as your repentance does not weaken, God will forgive everything. There is not — there cannot be — a sin on earth that God will not forgive the truly repentant. Why a man cannot commit a sin so great as to exhaust the infinite love of God. How could there be a sin that would surpass the love of God? Think only of repentance, all the time, and drive away all fear. Have faith that God loves you more than you can ever imagine. He loves you, sinful as you are and, indeed, because of your sin. It was said long ago that there is more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner than over ten righteous men. Go now, and fear nothing. Do not be offended if people treat you badly. Do not hold it against them. And forgive your departed husband all the harm he did you. Become truly reconciled with him. For if you repent, you love, and if you love, you are with God. Love redeems and saves everything. If I, a sinner like yourself, am moved and feel compassion for you, how infinitely much more will God! Love is such an infinite treasure, it can buy the whole world and can redeem not only your sins, but the sins of all people. So go and fear no more.”
-taken from “The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
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