St. Matthias

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

We're told in the Acts of the Apostles: “Having nominated two candidates, Joseph, known as Barsabbas, whose surname was Justus, and Matthias, they prayed, ‘Lord, you can read everyone's heart. Show us, therefore, which of these two you've chosen to take over this ministry and apostolate, which Judas abandoned to go to his proper place.’ They then drew lots for them, and as the lot fell to Matthias, he was listed as one of the twelve apostles” (Acts 1:23-26).

Today is the feast of St. Matthias.

After the Ascension, while the Apostles were awaiting the coming of the Holy Spirit, they chose Matthias in Judas's place to make up the number of the Twelve, because they were meant to represent the twelve tribes of Israel.

Matthias had been a disciple of our Lord and a witness to His Resurrection. According to tradition, he evangelized Ethiopia, where eventually he suffered martyrdom. Through the help of Saint Helena, his relics were later brought to Trier in Germany, where he is venerated as the Patron of the city.

We're reminded by his vocation that God is the one who chooses. “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide” (John 15:16).

After the betrayal of Judas, his place was left vacant among the Apostles. The election of his successor fulfilled something that the Holy Spirit had prophesied, and that Our Lord had expressly instituted: He wanted that there would be twelve Apostles (cf. Matt. 19:28). because the new People of God are to be founded upon twelve supports, just as the old People of God had been based on the twelve tribes of Israel (cf. Eph. 2:20).

Peter, exercising his primacy in the assembly of the one hundred twenty disciples, sets out the conditions laid down by the Master—conditions that had to be met by whichever disciple was chosen to complete the Apostolic College: he had to have known Jesus personally, and he would have to bear witness to Him.

Peter explains all this in his discourse to the assembly. “One of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us,” he says, “beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection” (Acts 1:21-22).

Peter, as it were, lays down very clearly the conditions for the election. He emphasizes that the man selected has to have been an eyewitness of the preaching and the events of Our Lord's public life, and especially of His Resurrection.

Thirty years later, we find him saying the same thing in his last written testimony to all Christians. In the second Letter of Peter, he says, “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Pet. 1:16).

Peter does not make the choice himself—he leaves that to God. We read in the Book of Proverbs, “The lot is cast into the lap, but the decision is wholly from the Lord” (Prov. 16:33).

The apostles put forward two people, Joseph called Barsabbas, and Matthias which means ‘God's gift.’ They cast lots for them. The lot fell upon Matthias, and so he was enrolled with the other eleven apostles. An ancient historian tells us that Matthias had belonged to a group of seventy-two who had been sent by Jesus to preach to the cities of Israel (cf. Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History).

Before the election, Peter and the other apostles prayed to God because the choice is not to be theirs; vocation is always a divine choice.

“They prayed, ‘Lord, you know the hearts of all men, show us which one of these you have chosen’” (Acts 1:24).

The Eleven and the other disciples don't dare to take upon themselves, by expressing any personal preference or inclination, the responsibility of choosing Judas’s successor.

You find down to the present day, the Church also functions in the same way: prays to the Holy Spirit; sees the chosen person as the voice of the Holy Spirit which bishops, with popes, and with all other functions that are needed in the Church.

When, later on, St. Paul feels compelled to declare the origin of his mission, he says that he himself has been appointed “not by men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father” (Gal. 1:1).

They all have this very clear awareness of their divine calling. It's God who chooses and sends forth, now just as much as then.

The Church tells us that each one of us has a divine calling to holiness and apostolate—every lay person, every baptized person in the history of the world and of the Church.

We receive it first in Baptism and it's subsequently underlined by God's successive interventions in our lives: our professional vocation, our vocation to marriage and the family, our celibate vocation.

At certain moments in our life, Our Lord lets that calling to follow Him become particularly intense and clear.

In The Forge, we're told, “I didn't think God would get hold of me the way he did, either. But… God doesn't ask our permission to ‘complicate’ our lives. He just gets in: and that's that!” (Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, Point 902). It's then up to each one of us to respond.

In our prayer today, we could ask ourselves: Am I ready to respond to what God is asking of me; to the voice of the Holy Spirit as He speaks to me, day by day?

Do I try to do the will of God in all my undertakings? Am I prepared to respond my whole life long to whatever it is that Our Lord asks of me?

“The lot,” we're told, “fell on Matthias.” We're reminded that our calling is always an unmerited gift.

At the same time, God always gives us the grace to respond to the calling that He gives us. We're never denied the graces that we need.

Our Lord destines us to become ever more identified with His Son and to participate in His divine life. He gives a mission to each one of us and He wants us to enjoy the happiness of heaven with Him forever.

He's called us on this earth to be close to Christ and to extend His kingdom, each one of us in the specific place where God has placed us.

Apart from this universal call to holiness, Jesus calls many individuals in a special way: some, to give witness by separating themselves from the world; others, to serve Him in a specific way through the priesthood.

But in the case of the immense majority, Our Lord calls them to remain in the world and to vivify it from within, either in marriage, which is “a way of holiness” (J. Escrivá, Conversations, Point 92), or in celibacy, which is the complete offering of one's heart for the love of God and souls.

The vocation is not born of good desires or great aspirations. The apostles and Matthias did not choose Our Lord as Master after the fashion of the Jews who used to look for some rabbi to be their teacher.

It was Christ who sought them out—some directly, others, like Matthias, indirectly through this particular election which the Church leaves in God's hands.

Our Lord reminds the Apostles in the Last Supper, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go out and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain” (John 15:16).

We read this Gospel in today's Mass. We're reminded that one of the goals of our life is fruit that will remain, fruit that may not be expressed in numbers, but fruit that can be expressed in the life of Christ in us; of how we approximate that goal, which is holiness.

Why were these particular men chosen to receive this particular privilege? We don't know the answer to that question. It's simply that Our Lord freely called them and not others.

“He called to himself,” we’re told in St. Mark, “those whom he desired” (Mark 3:13). So we know that Our Lord might have chosen people much better than us, much more talented, much more appropriate.

St. Josemaría says, “God chooses the worst instruments He can find to prove that the work is truly his” (cf. J. Escrivá, The Way, Point 475).

To be chosen is our entire good fortune. We find the purpose of our life in that calling.

From the moment that Our Lord singles out a particular soul and invites it to follow Him, following on that there are many other callings, which may perhaps seem small, but which can mark out that person's journey through their life.

“All through our life, ordinarily little by little, but constantly and in a compelling way, God tenders us many ‘determinations’ of his initial calling, more specifications of that calling, all of which imply a person-to-person relationship with Our Lord” (Pedro Rodriguez, Vocation, Work, and Contemplation).

We could ask Our Lord for the grace to see our calling very clearly, and our apostolic calling, and, in this month of May, to see how we can make this month a particularly apostolic month.

Lord, help us to make that decision to follow you.

When we say yes the first time, Our Lord doesn't let us know all the small print of what He has planned out for us, possibly because at that particular moment, we're not in a position to say yes to all those subsequent callings.

God gives the soul special insights and graces in those impulses by means of which the Holy Spirit seems to draw it upwards, making us aspire to be better, to serve all mankind, particularly those that we meet in a daily way. God's grace is never lacking.

Tradition has it that St. Matthias died a martyr's death, just like the other Apostles. His life consisted essentially in measuring up to the splendid and at times arduous task which the Holy Spirit made him responsible for on that particular day.

In our case too, it is in fidelity to our vocation that we find true happiness and the meaning of our life. All of it will be revealed to us by God in His own good time.

Happiness and the meaning of life for every person consists in following God’s call. Jesus chooses His own; He calls them. This calling is their greatest honor and gives them the right to a very special union with the Master, to special graces which are heard in the intimacy of prayer.

“The vocation of everyone is based, up to a certain point, on his or her own being; it can be said that vocation and person become one and the same thing. This means that in God's creative initiative, there is present a particular act of love directed towards those who are called, not only to salvation,” says Pope John Paul, “but to the ministry of salvation.

“Therefore, from eternity, from the time we began to exist in the plans of the Creator and He willed us to come into being, He also willed us to be called, predisposing in us all the gifts and conditions for a personal and conscious response to the call of Christ or the Church. God who loves us, who is love, is also ‘the one who calls us’ (cf. Rom. 9:11)” (John Paul II, Address to Seminarians, July 5, 1980).

St. Paul nearly always starts his letters reflecting these ideas. In the first Letter to the Romans and the Corinthians, he says, “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God” (Rom. 1:1; 1 Cor.1:1).

He says in Galatians that he is called and chosen “not by men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father” (Gal.1:1).

God calls us as He called Moses (Ex. 3:4, 19:20, 24:16), as He called Samuel (1 Sam. 3:4), as He called Isaiah (Isa. 6:1ff). It's a vocation that's not based on any merit of the individual. Isaiah says, “The Lord called me from the womb” (Isa. 49:1)

St. Paul puts it even more categorically: “He saved us and called us with a holy calling, not in virtue of our works, but in virtue of his own purpose,” he says in the second Letter to Timothy (2 Tim. 1:9).

Jesus calls His disciples to share His chalice, that is, His life and His mission. He now extends that same invitation to us.: we have to try and be careful not to drown His voice in the noise of things, which, if they are not in Him and for Him, must be of no interest at all.

When we hear Christ's voice inviting us to follow Him completely, nothing is of any importance compared to the business of following Him.

Christ, for His part, all our life long, reveals to us little by little the great richness of the call we first heard on the day He passed close to us.

After the election of Matthias, he once more fades into the background. Along with the other Apostles, he experienced the burning joy of Pentecost. He traveled far and wide, he preached, he cured the sick, but his name does not appear again in Sacred Scripture.

Like the other Apostles, he left behind him an indelible trail of faith which has endured to our own time. He was a burning light that God could contemplate joyfully from heaven.

We could think of our own personal apostolate at this particular time. St. Josemaría liked to say we have to go after each soul to win it for Christ. He said, “Treat them all with affection. Drown them all in love for Christ.”

“I look at your Cross, my Jesus,” he says, “and I rejoice in your grace, because your Calvary has won for us the reward of the Holy Spirit. And you give yourself to me, each day, lovingly, madly, in the sacred host. And you have made me a child of God and have given me your Mother to be mine. I can't be satisfied with just giving thanks. My thoughts take flight: Lord, Lord, there are so many souls who are so far from you!

“Foster those yearnings,” he says, “for apostolate in your life, that many may get to know him…and love him…, and come to feel loved by him!” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 27).

If we use this month of May well, maybe putting an intention of souls on each Hail Mary in the Rosaries that we say, or pestering Our Lady for different apostolic intentions or desires that we have, she will surely bring us on to a new apostolic level with a new zeal, so that we look for those souls that God has placed around us.

“I've come to spread fire on this earth,” Our Lord said, “and what would I, that it be enkindled” (Luke 12:49).

“You wrote:” he says in The Forge, “My King, I hear you proclaiming in a loud voice that still resounds: ‘I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and would that it were already kindled!’ Then you added: ‘Lord…, I answer, with all my heart, all my senses and faculties: ‘Here I am because you have called me.’ May this answer of yours be a daily reality” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 52).

St. Thomas Aquinas says, “Zeal, whatever way we take it, arises from the intensity of love” (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Question 28).

The first point to increase our apostolic zeal is to grow in our love of God. We're told in the Furrow that “Where there is zeal for souls, good…soil can always be found” (J. Escrivá, Furrow, Point 195).

Those are very encouraging words, because we might think that in this particular area of society, there's nothing to be done; or with that particular friend, or this particular environment.

Lord, help me to have the qualities of zeal that you'd like me to have—an enduring spiritual ardor.

There was a man once in an office who tried to reach out to a lot of his colleagues, some successfully, some unsuccessfully. But there was one particular person in the office who never paid any attention to him. He didn't have time for him and thought what he was promoting was rubbish.

But then one time this man got into a crisis in his marriage, and he decided he needed some advice. So he went to this other colleague of his, looking for advice.

This friend who had tried to reach out to him on many occasions was a bit surprised that he would come to him. He said, “But you know, I've sort of tried to invite you to things and reach out to you in many ways. Why do you come to me? You've always given me the impression that I have nothing to offer you.”

This colleague said, “Well, you're the only one around here who talks about serious things. So you're the only one I can talk to about the fact that my wife wants to divorce me.”

The first colleague said, “OK, give me time to think about it. I’ll bring it to my prayer this evening and I'll see what I can come up with.”

This is always a good thing to say to people because they see we take them seriously, that we pray. We're going to pray about them.

That evening in his prayer, talking to Our Lord, he looked for lights and asked for something that he might be able to say to his friend to help him in his predicament.

But the only thing he could say was on occasion, when St. Josemaría said that husbands occasionally should bring a present of flowers to their wife. He didn't think that was much. It was a bit late for flowers. This guy said that his wife was about to divorce him, but that was all that he saw in his prayer.

The following day, when he met up with his friend and colleague, he suggested to him, “Why don't you bring flowers to your wife?”

The colleague thought and almost said to him, “Look, I really wasted my time talking to you, if that's all the bright suggestion you can come up with. It's a bit late for flowers. She's about to divorce me.”

So that was the end of their conversation. But later in the day, as he was thinking about it, he thought, “Maybe it doesn't do any harm to bring her flowers. The only thing she could do would be to hit me with them. That's the worst thing that could happen.”

He decided to buy her flowers and he arrived home with a bunch of flowers. When the wife opened the door, he handed her the flowers.

She burst into tears and said, “This is the first time in twenty years that you have brought me flowers.” So that was the whole new beginning of their marriage.

We need to pay a lot of attention to the ideas that Our Lord communicates to us in our prayer. Those are the very things He wants us to pass on to others.

We're told in the Furrow, “When I speak to you about ‘apostolate of friendship’, I mean a personal friendship, self-sacrificing and sincere: face to face, heart to heart. In the apostolate of friendship and trust, the first step has to be understanding service—and holy intransigence in doctrine (J. Escriva, Furrow, Points 191-192).

We're to try and use all the means that Our Lord has given us as ordinary Christians in the middle of the world to do apostolate in the way that God has called us to do it.

St. Paul says to the Corinthians, “Mark this: he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Let each one give according as he has determined in his heart, not grudgingly, as if by compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9:6-7).

If through spiritual direction, Our Lord points out to us a certain soul, or a certain initiative, or a pathway to take, then we should pay a lot of attention to that light of the Holy Spirit, because maybe that's where God wants us to really fish.

It's an indication from the Holy Spirit that this is where the fish are. “Cast the net to the other side of the boat” (John 21:6).

We could ask Our Lady in this month of May that she might help us to be ever more attentive to those inspirations of the Holy Spirit.

We're told in today's Gospel, “I have loved you just as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, and I will keep my Father's commandments and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my own joy may be in you and your joy may be complete” (John 15:9-11).

When we're sowing the seeds of the apostolate, we're spreading joy—"sowers of peace and joy” (J. Escrivá, Christ Is Passing By, Point 168).

There's no limit to the amount of joy that God wants us to bring into the lives of other people when we listen to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit.

We're told in The Forge, “Sweet Mother…, lead us to that madness that will make others fall madly in love with our Christ. Sweet Lady Mary, may love not be in us a flash in the pan, or a will-o’-the-wisp, such as decomposing corpses sometimes produce. May it be a devouring fire that sets alight and burns everything it touches” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 57).

Queen of Apostles, pray for us.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

GD