Saint James of the Marches - November 28
Also known as
Dominic Gangala
Giacomo della Marca
Jacopo Gangala
James della Marca
James Gangala
James of La Marca of Ancona
James of Picenum
Memorial
28 November
Profile
Born poor. Doctor of Civil Law. Franciscan monk at age 22. Studied with Saint John of Capistrano. Disciple of Saint Bernadine of Siena. Tutor. Judge of sorcerers. Ordained in 1423. Preacher and evangelist throughout Central and Northern Europe, preaching every day for 40 years. Brought Blessed Bernardino of Feltre and Blessed Bernardino of Fosso into the Franciscans. Travelled and worked with Saint John Capistrano. Inquisitor in 1426, assigned to crush the heretical Fraticelli. Worked against the Bogomil heresy in Bosnia in 1432. Founded several monasteries in Bohemia, Hungary, and Austria. Chief almoner for the 1437 Crusade against the Turks. Worked at the Council of Florence in 1438 to re-unite the Eastern and Latin Churches. Papal legate in 1456. Preached against the Hussites in Austria and Hungary. The Dominican Inquisitors made him the subject of an inquiry in 1462 when they thought that one of his statements on the Precious Blood was heretical; Rome ordered the case to be put permanently on hold, and it was never settled. A skinny man who dressed in a tattered habit, he fasted every day until his health began to fail – and the pope ordered him to eat as a public service.
Born
1 September 1391 at Monteprandone, March of Ancona, Italy as Dominic Gangala
Died
28 November 1476 at Naples, Italy
buried at the church of Santa Maria Nuova, Naples
Beatified
12 August 1624 by Pope Urban VIII
Canonized
10 December 1726 by Pope Benedict XIII
Patronage
in Italy
Ancona
Monteprandone
Naples
Representation
priest holding in his right hand a chalice from which a snake is escaping
chalice and serpent
Franciscan holding a chalice and a veil
Franciscan with a staff, castanets at his girdle, pointing to IHS
Our Lady of Kibeho
—
Anrê Tran Van Trông
Calimerius of Montechiaro
Catherine Labouré
Fionnchu of Bangor
Hilary of Dijon
Hippolytus of Saint Claude
Honestus of Nimes
Irenarcus
James of the Marches
James Thompson
Papius
Quieta of Dijon
Rufus
Simeon the Logothete
Sosthenes of Colophon
Stephen the Younger
Theodora of Rossano
—
Martyrs of Constantinople – 8 saints
Martyrs of North Africa – 13 saints
Martyrs of Tiberiopolis – 14 saints
Martyred in the Spanish Civil War
Martyred Augustinians of Madrid – 12 beati
Martyred Hospitallers of Madrid – 15 beati
Oblate Martyrs – 23 beati
Ciril Montaner Fabré
Francisco Fernández Sánchez Toril
José García Pérez
José Prieto Fuentes
Juan Herrero Arroyo
Luis Campos Górriz
Pedro Simancas Valderramas
Ramiro Frías García
Xaverian Martyrs of Uvira
Albert Joubert
Giovanni Didonè
Luigi Carrara
Vittorio Faccin
—
Callen of Rogart
Theodore of Rostov
Vittorio Faccin
He was born of a poor family named Gangala, at Monteprandone, Marche of Ancona, Italy, 1394. He began his studies at Offida under the guidance of his uncle, a priest, who soon afterwards put him to school at Ascoli. At the University of Perugia he took the degree of Doctor in Civil Law. After a short stay at Florence as tutor in a noble family, and as judge of sorcerers, James was received into the Franciscan Order of the Friars Minor, in the chapel of the Portiuncula, Assisi, on July 26, 1416. Having finished his novitiate at the hermitage of the Carceri, near Assisi, he studied theology at Fiesole, near Florence, under St. Bernardine of Siena.
On June 13, 1420, be was ordained a priest and soon began to preach in Tuscany, in the Marches, and in Umbria; for half a century he carried on his spiritual labours, remarkable for the miracles he performed and the numerous conversions he wrought. From 1427 James preached penance, combated heretics, and was on legations in Germany, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Bohemia, Poland, Hungary, and Bosnia. In the last-mentioned country he was also commissary of the Friars Minor.
At the time of the Council of Basle he promoted the union of the moderate Hussites with the Church, and that of the Greek Orthodox at the Council of Ferrara-Florence. Against the Ottomans, he preached several crusades, and at the death of St. John Capistran, in 1456, James was sent to Hungary as his successor.
In Italy he fought the Fraticelli, instituted several montes pietatis (literally, "mountains of piety": nonprofit credit organizations that lent money at very low rates on pawned objects), and preached in all the greater cities; Milan offered him the bishopric in 1460, which he declined. St. James belonged to the Observant branch of the Friars Minor, then rapidly spreading and exciting much envy. How much he suffered on this account is shown in a letter written by him to St. John Capistran, published by Nic. Dal-Gal, O.F.M., in "Archivum Franciscanum Historicum", I (1908), 94-97. Under Callistus III, in 1455, he was appointed an arbiter on the questions at issue between Conventuals and Observants. His decision was published February 2, 1456, in a papal Bull, which pleased neither part. A few years later, on Easter Monday 1462, St. James, preaching at Brescia, uttered the opinion of some theologians that the Precious Blood shed during the Passion was not united with the Divinity of Christ during the three days of His burial. The Dominican James of Brescia, inquisitor, immediately cited him to his tribunal. James refused to appear, and after some troubles appealed to the Holy See. The question was discussed at Rome during Christmas 1462 (not 1463, as some have it), before Pope Pius II and the cardinals, but no decision was given. James spent the last three years of his life at Naples, and died there on November 28, 1476.
[edit] Writings
The works of St. James of the Marches have not yet been collected. His library and autographs are preserved in part at the Municipio of Monteprandone (see Crivellucci, "I codici della libreria raccolta da S. Giacomo della Marca nel convento di S. Maria delle Grazie presso Monteprandone", Leghorn, 1889).
He wrote "Dialogus contra Fraticellos" printed in Baluze-Mansi, "Miscellanea", II, Lucca, 1761, 595-610 (cf. Ehrle in "Archiv für Litt. u. Kirchengeschichte", IV, Freiburg im Br., 1888, 107-10). His numerous sermons are not edited. For some of them, and for his treatise on the "Miracles of the Name of Jesus", see Candido Mariotti, O.F.M., "Nome di Gesù ed i Francescani", Fano, 1909, 125-34. On his notebook, or "Itinerarium", See Luigi Tasso, O.F.M., in "Miscellanea Francescana", I (1886), 125-26: "Regula confitendi peccata" was several times edited in Latin and Italian during the fifteenth century. "De Sanguine Christi effuse" and some other treatises remained in manuscript.
[edit] Veneration
James was buried in Naples in the Franciscan church of St. Maria la Nuova, where his body is still to be seen. He was beatified by Pope Urban VIII in 1624, and canonized by Pope Benedict XIII in 1726. Naples, Italy venerates him as one of its patron saints. His liturgical feast is on 28 November. He is generally represented holding in his right hand a chalice, out of which a snake is escaping – an allusion to some endeavours of heretics to poison him or, less likely, to the controversy about the Precious Blood.
[edit] References
^ Also known as Dominic Gangala, Jacopo Gangala, James della Marca, James Gangala.
^ "St. James of the Marches". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. en.wikisource.org/…/St._James_of_th….
(Italian) San Giacomo della Marca
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_of_the_Marches