Today November 27

Today is the dramatic feast day of St. James the Dismembered, (died 421). He was one of the members of the early Christian community in Beth-Lapeta in present-day Iran. We all think of that country as having been Muslim forever, but, no, it was pagan first (in fact, when James was still living, the kings were all pagan and the culture was predominantly pagan), then Christian and THEN Muslim. Interesting.

Anyway, James was a typical Persian male of the time -- masculine, vigorous and chauvinistic. He also made a deal with the devil: when the king befriended him (he was a royal courtier), he let his Christian faith kind of fall by the wayside. His wife and his mother were scandalized. They wrote to him: "By doing the will of a mortal man, you have deserted him with whom there is life; to please one who will be a mass of rottenness, you have deserted the eternal fragrance; you have traded the truth for a lie . . . Know therefore that from now on we are strangers to you." Stung to the core -- and by mere WOMEN -- James did the right thing: repented, and re-embraced his faith, even knowing what it would cost him.

King Vararanes called for him and boldly asked him, "Are you a Christian?" "Yes," said James. The king then reminded him of all the many favors and gifts the previous king, Vararanes' father, had bestowed on him. James calmly replied: "And where is he at present?" No one had ever addressed the king like that. Besides, it was rudeness in the extreme to talk about death! Vararanes was furious and sentenced James to a slow, gruesome death: each joint cut off, starting with the fingers, then the toes, then the limbs. If you think this torture is unique, it's not. I remember reading about a black man in America during Jim Crow days being tied to a chair, put up on a platform and killed in the very same horrific way. His crime had been the rape of a three-year-old white girl. One observer, even through convinced of the man's guilt, said no one, no matter WHAT his crime, should be condemned to that.

But James manfully refused to renounce his faith and even sang a little hymn to God after each dismemberment. When he was nothing but a trunk, he proclaimed, "The Lord will clothe me with new flesh." Then they beheaded him. Dear St. James, pray for us.