Fr Alex Swain

Beloved in Christ,

Yesterday, August 24, was the Feast of St. Bartholomew the Apostle. But, as it was a Sunday (and therefore a Feast of the Lord), and St. Bartholomew’s Feast is not one of the major Feasts which are able to take precedence over a Sunday, the Church transfers the festal day to Monday (today).

The biography of St. Bartholomew is relatively scarce in our Lesser Feasts and Fasts (see page 368). That’s in part because the Gospels are relatively scarce on telling us anything of note about the disciple.

Tradition has it that he traveled to India and spread the Gospel there. Another tradition claims that he was flayed alive in Armenia for his faith and dedication to Jesus Christ.

We remember him as one of the 12, one of the people called by Christ to serve Him and follow Him.

The Gospel for today’s Daily Bread reminds us of the immense contrast between the ways of the worldly kings—who lord power and authority—and the Kingdom and Reign of God. In this Kingdom, the greatest must become like the youngest, the leader like one who serves. 

Christ comes as one who serves. We as Christian who seek for our lives to ever more take a cruciform shape, strive to do the same.

This may look many different ways, but the key virtue, the critical ethic underlying this, is the central Christian virtue of humility.

For many of us, humility entails the kind of lifestyle counter to what the current world demands. It means taking a back seat, it means raising up others to be leaders, it means being a servant of light to the hurting and sin-sick world we live in.

In some ways, I think that the paucity of information on St. Bartholomew presents us with an image of humility.

He is one of little repute and quite unknown. Yet, as one of the twelve disciples, he was utterly important to the proclamation and spread of the Gospel.

We will not know the true impact of St. Bartholomew’s ministry and service for Christ in the world until we meet him in the presence of our Lord. But until then, may we take heart and example that even those with no record are still profoundly important to the ministry of Christ.

Each one of the Disciples mattered. Each one of us matters, too.

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Alex