Linked

For some reason it never occurred to me before.

But this year, on this Feast of Saints Philip and James, it did.

Why are these guys linked together?

Sure, they’re both Apostles.

They knew each other, they served together.

They’re both martyrs.

But why should they share a Feast Day?

Some of the others get their own Feasts.

We don’t know much about Philip.

But he’s one of the more frequently referenced Apostles.

He sometimes even gets a speaking role in the Gospel, as he did today.

Doesn’t he deserve his own Feast?

Today’s James is hardly known at all.

He’s not James the Greater, the son of Zebedee and brother of John.

This is James the Lesser.

We don’t really know who he is.

He’s referenced once as the son of Alphaeus.

Maybe he’s the same guy sometimes called James the Brother of Jesus.

Or maybe he’s the same guy sometimes called James the Just.

Maybe not.

There’s a James mentioned in our first reading today.

In the Letter to the Corinthians.

But that might be one of the other James’s.

So why should Philip and this James be linked together to share a Feast?

I did a little research and couldn’t find much.

One explanation was that some of their relics are housed together.

These relics—these remainders of them—

Have dwelt together in a church in Rome for over 1500 years.

Maybe that’s a good-enough answer.

But a better answer may be simply—Why not?

It really doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter that we don’t know all the details about the Apostles.

It doesn’t matter to them or to us whether they share a Feast Day.

Or which other Apostles they might be closely linked with.

What matters is that they were in fact Apostles.

Close followers of Jesus.

That they came to see and believe in the most critical links.

The link that Jesus speaks of in today’s Gospel.

That link between himself and the Father.

They dwell in each other.

And also that link Jesus assured them he would preserve.

That link between himself and his followers.

He would dwell in them and they in him.

What’s important to us is that those Apostles

Carried that message out through all the earth.

So we could know that we too are linked to Jesus.

And through him, to the Father.

Feast of Saints Philip and James

Jn 14:6-14   Read this Scripture @usccb.org