SPAIN
The feast of St. James the Apostle represents the “living memory of Spain’s identity” that invites the country “to return to the origins of its most authentic history and humanly and spiritually to renew itself by rediscovering the Christian heritage that reveals its roots”, said Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela, Archbishop of Madrid, on the solemnity of St. James, patron of Spain, celebrated on 25 July. “James – added the cardinal – reminds the Spanish Church as a whole of its apostolic roots and the precocious evangelization of its people”. Spain, the Archbishop of Madrid recalled, “was and remains the land of Mary and the land of the saints” because “the apostolic seed of the Gospel sown by James and the faith it has received have always guided” its history: it is a land “cultivated by the gift of a contemplative life and by the missionary zeal of all its sons”. Especially in 2007, in the cardinal’s view, James invites us “to revive our missionary vocation” as witnesses of Jesus “with particular urgency” both “at home, in our society and among the new generations, including young immigrants” and beyond “our frontiers”. Contemporary Spain, concluded the Archbishop of Madrid, would do well to “present herself in the European Union and in the world as a cultural, ethical and socially relevant and fruitful factor by seeking inspiration and guidance from the great spiritual heritage of St. James”.
