Feast of Saint Matthias, Apostle
May 14, 2024
Today’s Readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051424.cfm
You are my friends if you do what I command you.
I no longer call you slaves,
because a slave does not know what his master is doing.
I have called you friends,
because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.
It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you
and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain,
so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.
This I command you: love one another.”
John 15: 14-17
What about Matthias and the story of his emerging role in the spread of the Gospel? He must have been holy and good even to be considered for the office of Apostle. Were there just too many holy people initially to fit him into the biblically magic number of 12? And what about Justus who didn’t make the numerical cut? Was his giftedness lost to the early Church because of a short straw or a muffed coin flip?
In our Gospel, Jesus tells us that we are each “appointed” to bear fruit that will remain. No matter our title or function, we are equally “chosen” to nurture and sustain the life of the community.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Let’s pray with Matthias that, whether recognized or unrecognized, we will be faithful to the Gospel in word and action.
Poetry: Fear of Being Chosen – Sister Natalia, member of Christ the Bridegroom Byzantine Catholic Monastery
O Matthias, what did you think,
what did you feel,
when you were beckoned forward?
Did your heart race at the idea
of joining ranks with those eleven?
Eleven different types of broken,
all seeking to be whole.
Did you fear the possibility
of secret brokenness revealed?
And did you also feel
the thrill of sure adventure,
after having seen the ups and downs
of the men whose eyes were now on you?
You’d seen their pain, their dying,
and in your heart felt a pull.
One thing you must have known,
known without a doubt
being witness to the resurrection
would mean a life of miracles.
And when you heard your name called out,
and reality sunk in,
did you feel that joyful pain of knowing
that all now know that you are His?
Did your thoughts bounce back and forth
between death and resurrection?
And did you steal one more glance
at Joseph Barsabbas
and wonder, “Why not him?”
Music: Mathias Sanctus – Hildegard von Bingen (chanted by Bella Voce Chicago)
Mathias, sanctus per electionem,
vir preliator per victoriam,
ante sanguinem Agni electionem non habuit,
sed tardus in scientia fuit
quasi homo qui perfecte non vigilat.
Donum Dei illum excitavit,
unde ipse pre gaudio sicut gygas
in viribus suis surrexit,
quia Deus illum previdit
sicut hominem
quem de limo formavit
cum primus angelus cecidit,
qui Deum negavit.
Homo qui electionem vidit –
ve, ve, cecidit!
Boves et arietes habuit,
sed faciem suam ab eis
retrorsum duxit
et illos dimisit.
Unde foveam carbonum invasit,
et desideria sua osculatus
in studio suo,
illa sicut Olimpum erexit.
Tunc Mathias per electionem divinitatis
sicut gygas surrexit,
quia Deus illum posuit
in locum quem perditus homo noluit.
O mirabile miraculum
quod sic in illo resplenduit!
Deus enim ipsum previdit
in miraculis suis
cum nondum haberet meritum operationis,
sed misterium Dei
in illo gaudium habuit,
quod idem per institutionem suam
non habebat.
O gaudium gaudiorum
quod Deus sic operatur,
cum nescienti homini gratiam suam impendit,
ita quod parvulus nescit
ubi magnus volat,
cuius alas Deus parvulo tribuit.
Deus enim gustum in illo habet
qui seipsum nescit,
quia vox eius
ad Deum clamat
sicut Mathias fecit,
qui dixit:
O Deus, Deus meus,
qui me creasti,
omnia opera mea tua sunt.
Nunc ergo gaudeat omnis ecclesia
in Mathia,
quem Deus in foramine columbe
sic elegit.
Amen.
Mathias, a saint through being chosen,
a champion in his victory,
did not know himself chosen before the Lamb’s blood was shed:
he was tardy in knowledge,
like a man who is not perfectly awake.
God’s gift aroused him,
so that for joy he rose like a giant
in his strength:
God foresaw him
as he had foreseen the man
whom he formed of clay
when the first angel,
who denied God, fell.
The man who saw his choice,
alas, alas, he fell!
He had oxen and rams at his bidding,
yet he looked away from them,
turned his back
and abandoned them.
Thus he plunged in the pit of coal
and, kissing his own desires,
in his ardor
he raised them high, like an Olympus.
Then Mathias, divinely chosen,
rose like a giant,
because God set him
in the place that Judas, the lost, rejected:
O wondrous miracle
that shone through him thus!
For God foresaw him
in his miracles,
though he had not yet the merit of accomplishment,
but the mystery of God
had joy in him,
joy that in its original plan
it did not have.
Joy of joys
that God works in this way,
when he lavishes his grace on one who does not know,
so that the child does not know
where the grown man will fly,
whose wings God has given to the child!
For God savors the one
who does not know himself,
because his voice
is crying out to God,
as Mathias cried,
saying:
God, my God,
who created me,
all my works are yours!
So now let all Ecclesia take joy
in Mathias,
he whom God thus chose in the cleft where the dove nestles.
Amen.
Lavish Mercy 