Phillip,
seemingly a disciple of John the Baptist, was the third apostle, after
Andrew and Peter, whom Christ Our Lord called to follow Him. A family
man, St. Chrysostom says of him that he still found time to meditate on
the law and the prophets, which study prepared him to recognize the
expected Messiah. Mentioned several times in the Gospel of John, we get a
glimpse of the Apostle Phillip as a man of an amiable, earnest and
circumspect disposition.
Immediately after being chosen, he seeks
out Nathaniel to tell him of his great discovery. On meeting with
disdainful doubt on Nathaniel’s part, “Can anything good come from
Nazareth?” (John 1:46) Phillip is neither frustrated nor irritated but
says simply, “Come and see.”
At the multiplication of the loaves
and the fish, Our Lord singles him out, “Whence shall we buy bread that
they may eat?” to which Phillip replied soberly, “Two hundred pennyworth
of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one may take a little”
(John 6:5-7).
In his ardent love and desire to see the Father, he
asks Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father…” to which Our Lord replies
calling him by name, “…Philip, he that sees me sees the Father also…”
(John 14:8-9)
Phillip must have lived to an advanced age as St.
Polycarp, who was only converted in the year 80, held conversations with
him. He seems to have preached in Greece, Phrygia, and Syria, and
suffered martyrdom in Hierapolis.
James
called “the lesser” because he seems to have been younger than James
the Greater, was a brother of John and was also known as “James the
Just”.
He was son of Alpheus of Cleophas and Mary, a relative of
the Blessed Virgin Mary, which seems to make him a cousin of Jesus. In
Scriptures he is called a “brother” of the Lord, a title the Jews often
used for close relatives.
James the Lesser held a prominent
position in the early church, a man whom the Apostle Paul consulted.
According to tradition, he was Bishop of Jerusalem and was present at
the Council of Jerusalem in the year 50, where at the instance of Peter,
he officially pronounced that gentiles accepting baptism need not be
circumcised.
Tradition has also always recognized James the Lesser as the author of the epistle that bears his name.
The
historian Josephus, records that James earned his crown of martyrdom in
the year 62, when he was stoned to death in Jerusalem.
Monday, May 3, 2021
Sts. Philip and James
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