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Feast of St. James the Apostle
Friday, July 25, 2008
Friday, July 25: Feast of St. James, apostle, martyred about 42 A.D. He is the older brother of St. John and son of the fisherman, Zebedee and Salome, who was the sister of the Blessed Virgin. He, Andrew, John and Peter were the first followers of Jesus. Sometime after Pentecost he and some disciples went to evangelize the Jews in Spain with little success. It was revealed to a 17th century mystic, Mother Mary Agreda, in a four- volume work, "The Mystical City of God,." that the Blessed Virgin while still living on earth went to comfort James in a vision near the Elbro River. Mary, accompanied by legions of angels gave James a pillar of jasper marble and told him to build a chapel on the spot so that people could venerate her there. James did build it and it is within the Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar at Saragossa. Mary told James go back to Jerusalem where King Herod Agrippa I had him beheaded. He was the first apostle to be martyred. His disciples took his body back to Spain where it was buried and lost for hundreds of years. Now the place is known as Compostela, "field of the stars" where his body had been discovered.)