Lord Jesus Christ, on this feast of your apostles Philip and James the Younger, grant me the grace to discover your true identity the way they got to know you too; draw me closer to you to be familiar with you and your ways, to always "come and see" you in prayers and experiences in life.
Keep me close to you, dear Jesus, so that I may truly lead people to you and not to me nor to my beliefs; let me lead seekers of you find you both in your glory and in your Cross for without your sufferings and death, everything becomes a novelty and a fancy, or a philosophy and never a life and a union in you.
For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures; that he was buried; that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures; that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve.
1 Corinthians 15:3-5
Like Philip, keep me open in expressing to you my views when asked like at the wilderness when you tested him where to find food for the crowd; in another instance, let me be like Philip entertaining requests from others to see you like those Greeks who have come to Jerusalem; most of all, keep me open to you, dear Jesus to accept and treasure your words and teachings even if I do not understand immediately if that is the way to know you more clearly and eventually see and experience God our Father.
Like your cousin James the Younger, let me keep in mind that closeness with you does not come through mere affiliations nor with names because knowing you is a habit that we must strive and work for by coming to you daily, following you even up to the Cross; it is only in following you, becoming like you we truly become your disciples like James who taught and witnessed your love for everyone by working so hard with Peter to intervene in the difficult relations between the early Christians of Jewish origins and those of pagan converts; in practice and in his writings, James showed that faith in you is fulfilled in a life lived in love and respect for each other: "As the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from works is dead" (James 2:26).
Philip and James were not perfect, just like me; but in their humility and obedience, you perfected them in their lives of witnessing that cost their lives; keep me faithful to you, dear Jesus, and let others see you in me in words and in deeds. Amen.
