Saint James the Apostle

James, son of Zebedee and brother of Saint John, was a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee when Jesus called the two brothers to follow him. Jesus nicknamed them "Boanerges," sons of thunder, for their fiery zeal. With Peter and John, James was one of the three closest disciples: he witnessed the raising of Jairus' daughter, the Transfiguration and the agony in Gethsemane. Called "the Greater" to distinguish him from the other apostle James, he was the first of the Twelve to be martyred, beheaded in Jerusalem by King Herod Agrippa I around the year 44, as the Acts of the Apostles records.

An ancient Spanish tradition holds that he preached in Hispania, where Our Lady appeared to him on a pillar at Zaragoza, and that after his death his body was brought by his disciples to Galicia. In the early ninth century his tomb was discovered there, and Santiago de Compostela became one of the greatest pilgrimage sites of Christendom.

Pilgrims walk the Camino de Santiago to Compostela, where the giant censer, the botafumeiro, swings through the cathedral; when July 25 falls on a Sunday, a Jubilee Holy Year is celebrated. July 25 is a holiday in Galicia, and cities that bear his name, Santiago de Chile, Santiago de Cuba, Santiago de los Caballeros in the Dominican Republic and Santiago de Querétaro in Mexico, honor their patron with Masses, processions and fiestas.