Patrick Comerford
Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (20 April 2025) and continuing until the Day of Pentecost (8 June 2025), or Whit Sunday. This week began with the Fourth Sunday of Easter (Easter IV, 11 May 2025), and we are now halfway through the Season of Lent this year. The Church Calendar today celebrates the Feast of Saint Matthias the Apostle (14 May).
Later this evening, I hope to take part in the choir rehearsal in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, reading today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
John 15: 9-17 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 9 As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
12 ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16 You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17 I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.’
Today’s Reflection:
‘I chose you. And … I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another’ (John 15: 16-17).
Today is the Feast of Saint Matthias the Apostle. The Acts of the Apostles recall how he was chosen as one of the Twelve to replace Judas (Acts 1: 15-26).
I sometimes wonder whether Saint Matthias saw the humour in being second choice. After all, he was the second choice – not the first choice, but the second choice – to succeed Judas among the Twelve.
Imagine how Saint Matthias might have felt. The first time round, he was not good enough to be among the Twelve. But Judas was, and he would betray Christ. So too were Peter, James, John and Thomas. They were called to be among the Twelve, but Peter would betray Christ three times before his crucifixion, James and John had ambitions beyond their station, while Thomas would refuse to believe until he met the Risen Christ on his own terms.
After the Ascension, 120 believers met to pick a successor to replace Judas Iscariot. But even then, even on the second time round, Matthias is not the first name mentioned, he is not the first choice. Instead, the first name to come forward is that of Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus.
Nobody ever since remembers Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus. His saintly life, such as it was, has passed into oblivion. It may only be as an afterthought that someone suggests the name of Matthias. And then, they cannot make up their minds. Instead, they cast lots, and the lot falls to Matthias.
I doubt any of us would be happy to hear we have been selected or nominated for any role in the Church, for example, at our Select Vestry meetings these weeks, by tossing a coin, drawing straws or rolling a dice as others pray about whether we are suitable or qualified.
Saint Matthias is unnamed before this account. He is not named in the Gospels and after one reference in Acts there is no further mention of him. He is the forgotten apostle, like the ‘Fifth Beatle.’ Having made an unexpected entrance onto the stage, Saint Matthias walks off once again. And we hear nothing more about him.
In icons and stained glass windows, Judas is generally replaced by Saint Paul, and Saint Matthias is seldom depicted. His name, identity and life story have been forgotten, apart from making him the patron saint of alcoholism and smallpox, and a few small towns. We are not sure where he died, or where he is buried.
When we were visiting Kuching six months ago, Charlotte and I presented a church bell to the people of Saint Matthias Chapel in Sinar Baru, about 21 km south of Kuching in Sarawak. They had told us how the chapel had a bell tower, but no bell, and how they were praying and hoping for one that would be heard throughout the surrounding countryside, calling people to church on Sundays.
It was our first wedding anniversary that weekend, and we thought about the possibility of a thank-offering and how it might be another way of ringing our wedding bells a year later.
We bought an old, second-hand bell at Ho Nyen Foh’s tinsmith shop in Bishopsgate Street, one of the streets running between Carpenter Street and the Main Bazaar in Kuching’s old Chinatown. It may have been a ship’s bell, or a school bell, he could not remember which. It may have been a second-hand bell, but it certainly was not second-best – it was what the people of Saint Matthias had been praying for, and it was true symbol of love in so many ways.
The Early Church writer Clement of Alexandria says the apostles are not chosen for some outstanding character, and certainly not on their own merits. The apostles are chosen by Christ for his own reasons, but not for their merits.
If Saint Matthias had not been worthy of being called first time round, how is he worthy now to join the Twelve?
Like Saint Matthias, we are often in the place where we are in life only because the person who was there before us failed: Joshua led Israel because Moses failed in the wilderness; David became King because Saul failed; Matthias became an apostle because Judas failed.
Discipleship, being a follower of Christ, is never about my worthiness, my merits. It is Christ alone who calls us.
Saint Matthias was elected not because he was worthy but because he would become worthy. Christ chooses each one of us in the same way. We have been grafted into the company of the Children of God, not through our own merits, but by God’s grace.
Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 14 May 2025, Saint Matthias the Apostle):
‘Health and Hope in the Manyoni District’ provides the theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update from Dr Frank Mathew Haji of the Integrated Child Health and End Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV Programme in Tanzania.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 14 May 2025, Saint Matthias the Apostle) invites us to pray:
Dear God, we continue to pray for positive outcomes from this new programme, especially for the health and wellbeing of HIV-negative babies.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
who in the place of the traitor Judas
chose your faithful servant Matthias
to be of the number of the Twelve:
preserve your Church from false apostles
and, by the ministry of faithful pastors and teachers,
keep us steadfast in your truth;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Almighty God,
who on the day of Pentecost
sent your Holy Spirit to the apostles
with the wind from heaven and in tongues of flame,
filling them with joy and boldness to preach the gospel:
by the power of the same Spirit
strengthen us to witness to your truth
and to draw everyone to the fire of your love;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflections
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
