In an era when Europe seems to have forgotten its roots, today more than ever it is necessary to remember and honor on his day the apostle James, the son of thunder, the Matamoros, the patron saint of Spain. This is not just a religious celebration, but a reaffirmation of identity, history, and civilization. In times of moral relativism, James represents a flame that doesn't go out: that of a faith that transformed the Old Continent.
James, son of Zebedee and brother of the evangelist John, was one of the first disciples called by Jesus Christ. Together with Peter and his brother, he was part of the Redeemer's inner circle. He witnessed the resurrection of Jairus's daughter, the Transfiguration, and the agony in Gethsemane.
Jesus himself nicknamed him “Boanerges,” son of thunder, because of his fiery character, always ready to defend his faith even with fire from heaven if necessary. But it was Christ who taught him the path of mercy, not vengeance.
After the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus, James departed for Hispania, becoming the first evangelizer of the peninsula. Although academic history strives to relativize his passage through these lands, tradition—that great witness of peoples—holds that he even had an apparition of the Virgin Mary in Zaragoza, giving him hope in the midst of desolation: there the devotion to the Virgin of the Pillar, spiritual mother of Spain, was born.
Some time later, James was martyred in Jerusalem, and according to chronicles, his body was miraculously transported to Galicia. For centuries his tomb remained hidden, until in the ninth century, guided by a star, a humble hermit named Pelayo found his sepulcher. The place was called “Campus Stellae”—field of the star—and there one of the most majestic temples of Christendom was erected: the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.
That discovery was not only religious, it was political and cultural. In the midst of the Reconquista, when Islam occupied much of Spanish soil, James was adopted as the banner of Christian resistance. Thus was born the figure of “Santiago Matamoros,” a symbol of the struggle to recover the soul of a nation invaded by the crescent moon. The apostle became the heavenly general of the Reconquista, appearing in key battles such as Clavijo, mounted on horseback, sword in hand, encouraging the soldiers of Christ.
