Homily for the Feast of St. Bartholomew
Aug. 24, 2021
Collect
Christian
Brothers, St. Joseph’s Home, New Rochelle, N.Y.
In New Rochelle, St. Bartholomew’s Day
brings the historical memory of the terrible massacre
of thousands of Huguenots in Paris and other French towns in 1572, an
antecedent of those Protestants’ flight from France in the 17th and 18th
centuries to England, the British colonies, and other places of refuge, and the
founding of our own city in 1688 on a large grant of land from the Pell family
thru the mediation of Lt. Gov. Jacob Leisler, whose
imposing statue stands on North Ave. opposite New Rochelle HS—which in days of
yore the students of Iona Prep used to “decorate” with maroon paint before the
annual football game against New Rochelle.
St. Bartholomew’s name appears in all the lists of the 12 apostles in the New Testament. It means “son of Talmai” and so isn’t a proper name. His own name may well have been Nathanael. That’s certainly the tradition, as we can tell from the gospel selection (John 1:45-51). That’s the only place where Nathanael appears in the gospels except among those who went fishing on the Sea of Galilee after the resurrection and then met risen Jesus (John 21:1-14).
Regardless of how little we know about
Bartholomew—or most of the 12—he “clung wholeheartedly to” Jesus, the Collect
says, and became his preacher among the nations. Jesus knew this man intimately, we can tell
from the gospel reading, and Nathanael/Bartholomew responded “wholeheartedly”
with a confession of faith in Jesus as both Son of God and Savior of Israel
(1:49). Then he followed Jesus
faithfully and without fanfare or fame—as most of us do, by God’s great gift of
grace.
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