Homily for Feast of St. Matthias

Homily for the Feast of St. Matthias

May 14, 2024
Acts 1: 15-17, 20-26
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.

“They gave lots to them, and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was counted with the 11 apostles” (Acts 1: 26).

In 1980 I was serving happily as campus minister at Don Bosco Prep when the provincial asked me to move to Paterson as principal of Don Bosco Tech.  The brother who was principal wanted a change after only one year in the job, and at least one other confrere had already said, “No, thanks,” altho I didn’t know that at the time.  I wasn’t especially well prepared for such a responsibility, which I also didn’t know at the time.  I made a lot of mistakes in the 4 years I served at DBT.

Many of you may have had similar experiences in your years as Christian Brothers, called upon to leave some ministry where you were doing good and doing well, or in an edifying community, and to undertake something new that maybe you didn’t especially want to do or to go somewhere you wouldn’t have chosen.

Imagine how Matthias felt when suddenly plucked from the mostly anonymous crowd of the disciples of Jesus.  Who even expected a job opening in that inner group called the 12?  Who had any idea what to expect in Jesus’ absence?

Acts doesn’t tell us much.  Matthias was thought of highly enuf that the assembled followers of Jesus nominated him to join the 11 as a “witness to Jesus’ resurrection” (Acts 1:22).  One tradition holds that he’d been one of the 72 disciples whom Jesus had sent “ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit” (Luke 10:1).  Now, the church left the final selection to God, and it was God who chose Matthias by lot.  After that, Matthias disappears as an individual apostle, and we have various uncertain claims about where he preached and whether he was martyred and how.

As for us, or at least for you who are more or less “retired,” the lot has already been cast.  Maybe it was cast several times over the last 60 years.  Can we see God’s hand in our past?  Once chosen by God’s providence to be a religious and several times called upon by a superior for this or that way of witnessing to the resurrection of Jesus, how did we do?  Can we praise God now for what he did in us and thru us?  What do we have to be grateful for?  Jesus has invited us to friendship with him, revealed himself to us, and appointed us to make others his friends (John 15:14-16).  Certainly that’s something to be grateful for and a friendship worth deepening.