SAINTS DAYS COMMEMORATED IN MAY
3 May Philipp and St James the Less
Two apostles whose actual dates of death are not known are
commemorated on one day because a Basilica in Rome was dedicated to
them. All reference to them is found in the New Testament.
Several disciples of Jesus are called James. Only of two of them we know
for definite who they were: The elder James, also called ‘St James the
Great’, Son of Zebedee, whose grave is venerated at Santiago de
Compostella, which is the destination of the pilgrim paths of St James – and
the other James, who is said to be the brother of Jesus. Protestant tradition
assures us that he is not identical with James number 3, the Son of Alpheus,
since they take the word ‘brother’ literally, although it could mean ‘cousin’ in
Old Testament tradition. According to Catholic and Orthodox tradition this
James (nr 2 or 3), is called ‘the Less’, sometimes ‘St James the Just’. He
was, as a relative of Jesus, such an important figure in the early Christian
community in Jerusalem, that the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus
mentions his execution in the year 62. Legend has it that he was thrown off
the temple walls and then beaten to death with a fullers’ club, Josephus
reports stoning, which was a judicial murder about which the Community
complained to the Roman Procurator, where upon the High Priest Annas lost
his job. The great esteem which James enjoyed with his contemporaries
justifies that he is today the Patron Saint of pastry-and cake makers, a trade
which has produced the goods, at least before the cake mixture or deep
freeze was invented.
14 May St Matthias (First Century)
He was chosen to replace Judas to make up the number of the apostles to
twelve once more. Acts 1: 21-2, describes the vote taken by the apostles to
choose from 2 candidates. With this brief appearance in the New Testament
definite information about him ends. Tradition places him preaching in
Judea, also in Cappadocia (Southern Turkey) There is a fictitious ‘Acts of
Andrew and Matthias’ which links him to Ethiopia. Clement of Alexandria
makes him one of the 72 disciples sent out to preach throughout the world.
His emblem is an axe, he is said to have been beheaded, and his claimed
relics were taken to Jerusalem and later sent to Rome by the empress
Helen.
26 May Saint Augustine of Canterbury (died 604) - (and not of Hippo!)
He was a Benedictine monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury
in 597. He is considered to be the ‘Apostle of the English Church’. He had
been Prior of a monastery in Rome when Pope Gregor the Great chose him
in 596 to lead a mission to Britain to Christianize the Anglo-Saxons and King
Ethelberth of Kent. Ethelberth had married a Christian princess from Gaul
(Bertha) Augustine is said to have landed on the island of Thanet where a
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