In Festo Ss. Philippi et Jacobi Apostolorum ~ II. classis Feria Secunda in Rogationibus
On this Monday in Rogationtide, the Church places before us a singular conjunction of mysteries. The Lesser Litanies have been chanted; the faithful have processed in penitential supplication, beseeching Heaven for fruitfulness both temporal and spiritual. Yet the same liturgy lifts our gaze from the furrows of the earth to the courts of the everlasting Father, by setting before us the Apostles Philip and James, whose festival the ancient calendar marks upon this day.
The pairing is providential. Rogationtide is, in its inmost meaning, a season of asking—and the Apostle Philip in today’s Gospel is precisely the one who asks: “Lord, shew us the Father, and it is enough for us” (John xiv. 8).
The Just Standing in Great Constancy
The Lesson, drawn from the Book of Wisdom, sets before us the final vindication of the just:
Then shall the just stand with great constancy against those that have afflicted them, and taken away their labours. These seeing it, shall be troubled with terrible fear, and shall be amazed at the suddenness of their unexpected salvation, saying within themselves… These are they, whom we had some time in derision, and for a parable of reproach. (Wis. v. 1–3)
St. Augustine, contemplating this dread reckoning in De Civitate Dei, reminds us that the wicked shall see what they would not believe: that those whom they reckoned fools for Christ’s sake are seated among the sons of God. The Apostles, foremost among them, were “made a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men” (1 Cor. iv. 9). Philip met his end, by ancient tradition, at Hierapolis in Phrygia; James the Less, “the brother of the Lord,” was hurled from the pinnacle of the Temple and clubbed by a fuller’s staff, as Hegesippus records and Eusebius preserves for us in his Ecclesiastical History. In life they were despised; in death, they reign.
The passage from Wisdom is therefore no abstract eschatology. It is the testament of every Apostle and martyr, and the promise extended to every Christian who in this Rogation week submits himself to fasting, prayer, and the holy procession.
“I Am the Way”
The Gospel opens with that most consoling command: “Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me” (John xiv. 1). Our Lord, on the eve of His Passion, fortifies the Apostles with the promise of the many mansions in His Father’s house.
St. Augustine, in his sixty-seventh Tractate on John, treats with great care the question of the multae mansiones. He warns against any carnal reading: the mansions are not so unequal that some shall be excluded from the vision of God, but rather they signify the diverse degrees of glory answering to merit. All shall possess God, the holy Doctor teaches, though not all shall possess Him in the same measure. The Apostles, who left all things to follow Christ, shall possess a mansion most exalted, and the throne of judgment besides (cf. Matt. xix. 28).
Then comes the question of Thomas, and our Lord’s tremendous reply: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me” (John xiv. 6). St. Ambrose, in his De Fide, marvels at the threefold name: Christ is the Way, by which we come; the Truth, in which we abide; and the Life, through which we live. No Father of the Church wrote of this verse without trembling, for here the exclusivity of Christ’s mediation is set down in His own words. There is no neutral path, no parallel ascent. The Rogation procession is not a sentimental gesture toward “the divine” in general; it is a pleading addressed to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Ghost—and outside this Way, there is no other.
Philip’s Question and Our Own
Then Philip speaks—and speaks for all of us: “Lord, shew us the Father, and it is enough.”
St. John Chrysostom, in his seventy-third Homily on John, observes that Philip’s request is not unworthy but immature. He desires the vision of God, which is indeed the whole end of man; yet he supposes the Father to be visible apart from the Son, as though They could be sundered. Our Lord’s answer is the very thunderbolt of orthodoxy: “Philip, he that seeth me, seeth the Father also” (John xiv. 9). St. Cyril of Alexandria seizes upon this verse as the firmament of the Nicene faith: the Son is consubstantial with the Father, and to behold the Incarnate Word is to behold, in the only manner granted to mortal eyes, the invisible God.
St. Hilary of Poitiers in De Trinitate enlarges the point. The Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father, not by mere moral union nor by any accident of grace, but by the very unity of the divine Nature. When the Christian gazes upon the Crucified, he gazes upon the love of the Father made visible. When he kneels at the elevation in the Holy Sacrifice—offered in these Rogation Masses in violet vestments of penitential supplication—he kneels before the Father Himself, veiled beneath the Sacred Species.
The Rogation Petition
Our Lord concludes the pericope with a promise that is the very nerve of Rogationtide: “If you shall ask the Father any thing in my name, he will give it you” (cf. John xiv. 13). We do not approach the Father as orphans. We ask in the Name of Jesus. The processional cross goes before us; the Litany of the Saints invokes the heavenly court—Philip and James foremost on this day—and the Church Militant beseeches the Church Triumphant to join her cry.
St. Gregory the Great, in a homily upon a Rogation procession of his own time at Rome, urges his hearers that fasting and almsdeeds must accompany the steps of the supplicants, lest the petition become a sounding brass. Let us heed him. To say “shew us the Father” with the lips of Philip while clinging to the vanities of the world is to ask without intending to receive.
A Practical Resolve
For this week of supplication, consider taking up three practices in the spirit of the day.
First, walk a small rogation of your own—a deliberate procession, even if only about your home or garden, blessing each room or row with holy water and the Pater noster, asking the Lord of the harvest to bring forth fruit in soul and in soil alike.
Second, meditate slowly upon John xiv. 6, repeating each clause as an aspiration through the day: Tu es Via. Tu es Veritas. Tu es Vita. Let this become the rhythm of your prayer until Ascension Thursday.
Third, read aloud the names of the Twelve Apostles, pausing at Philip and James to commend to them some particular intention—for the conversion of one soul, perhaps, or for perseverance in your own state of life.
Closing
The Apostles whom the world derided now “stand with great constancy” before the throne. They beheld the Father in beholding the Son, and they have entered the mansions which He prepared for them. The way they trod is open still: it is Christ Himself, who promises that whatsoever we ask the Father in His Name shall be granted.
Sancti Philippe et Jacobe, orate pro nobis.
If you wish to pursue this further, the Sacred Liturgy learning path will guide you through the structure and theology of Rogationtide and the Traditional Latin Mass, while the Lives of the Saints path opens fuller accounts of the Apostles Philip and James as preserved by Eusebius, Hegesippus, and the Roman Martyrology.