Bold type indicates a festival. Plain type indicates a commemoration.

Christ In Our Home, the devotional that I use in the mornings, has a section in front that gives you different dates of the year that are either traditional celebrations for Jesus's apostles or other New Testament events or commemorations of a saint's death ... if not the actual anniversary of their shuffling off this mortal coil, at least an approximation. It's an intelligent bet that the early Christians (re: the first millennium AD) didn't take account of specific numerical days so much especially since the Gregorian calendar the greater part of the world uses didn't even exist until the late sixteenth century, and then only Catholics used it. But you could account for the time of week, the day of the Julian calendar which then existed in the Western world and convert it later. Ten days' difference.


And I am ridiculously oversimplifying that. But I made you look.


Today is the day that Jesus' apostles Philip and James are celebrated. And are rendered in bold type. Philip you don't hear much about in Scripture as an apostle (and he's not to be confused with Philip the evangelist who met the Ethiopian on the way from Jerusalem to Gaza; see Acts 8) outside of Jesus calling him out of Bethsaida, Philip introducing Nathanael to Him (with the coolest witness in John 1:45 -- "We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of nazareth, the son of Joseph."), and Philip asking Jesus at the Passover, not the "last supper", to show him and his fellow apostles the Father, and that's enough. Then Jesus teaches how He IS the Father (God) and the Father's Him. John 14, keep reading.


All disciples are apostles, but not all apostles are disciples. Chew on that.


The James whose festival is today is James, the son of Zebedee. (The other apostle James is the son of Alpheus. And there's another James who is Jesus' half-brother. But I digress.) One of the closest disciples to Jesus -- he, Peter, and his brother John get to exclusively witness some of Jesus' miracles -- he and John were both hotheads in the beginning. Sons of Thunder, Jesus calls then in Mark 3:17, and they didn't even ride motorcycles back then. Also they're the ones who asked Jesus if he wanted them to call fire down from heaven on a Samaritan village in Luke 10:54 and they're the one who asked Jesus (through their mom, for who doesn't want the best for their children?) for seats at His right and left hands in His kingdom. See Matthew 20:20 onward for His response to that.


James has becone the patron saint of Spain, so I suppose that's something.


Per Acts 12:2, he's also the first apostle to get martyred (that's our faithful way of saying "killed") courtesy of Herod the king, the grandson of the Herod whom Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were warned to stay one step ahead of. I look back at what I've written and recall I used the last supper to refer to the twelve confirmands honored at church yesterday as they were all sitting in the library waiting for second service to begin. Sarah will be starting confirmation -- essentially a three-year introduction to the Christian faith through doctrine and service -- this fall because she'll be entering sixth grade, and Jeffrey the year after. And I've gotten to learn how to pray for them, and Martha and I, more ... I guess you'd say specifically and genuinely that I've been guilty of doing.


And I am excited to at least commemorate that,


David