Holy Spirit Roman Catholic Church

Gospel Excerpt, Cycle C, Luke 11:9-10: And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened."

Today is the Memorial of Saints Joachim and Anne, the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also the grandparents of Jesus. It was in the home of Saints Joachim and Anne where the Virgin Mary received her training to be the Mother of God. Thus, devotion to Anne and Joachim is an extension of the affection Christians have always professed toward our Blessed Mother. We, too, owe a debt of gratitude to our parents for their help in our Christian formation. The Church invokes this saintly couple as the patron of grandparents.

The Feast of St. James, the Apostle, known as the Greater, is celebrated today. The designation "the Greater" is in order to distinguish him from the other Apostle St. James, and it indicates he was chosen first before the other James. James the Greater was our Lord's cousin, and was St. John's brother. With Peter and John he was one of the witnesses of the Transfiguration, as later he was also of the agony in the garden. He was beheaded in Jerusalem in the year 42 or 43 A.D. on the orders of Herod Agrippa. Since the ninth century Spain has claimed the honour of possessing his relics, though it must be said that actual proof is far less in evidence than the devotion of the faithful. The pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella, Spain (known as Camino de Santiago, "the Way of St. James") in the Middle Ages attracted immense crowds; after the pilgrimage to Rome or the Holy Land, it was the most famous and the most frequented pilgrimage in Christendom. The pilgrim paths to Compostella form a network over Europe; they are dotted with pilgrims' hospices and chapels, some of which still exist. St. James is mentioned in the Roman Canon of the Mass.