Aug.24, 2006: Feast of St. Bartholomew, Apostle and Martyr

Scripture: Revelation 21:9b-14. Psalm 145. John 1:45-51.

Prior to first vows in religious congregations and religious orders, there is a year in a novitiate--a name for the house of formation for those seeking religious life with vows. I remember in my year of novitiate a retreat given by Fr. John Ott, S.M. who gave a series of conferences on the apostles. He had to make up a lot of stories to cover the twelve apostles for the Scriptures have very little about them, especially after Peter, James and John, and Andrew are covered. And so it is today with an apostle who carries the name Bartholomew. Now this name means son of Tholomeus. There are some references to him (check out the lists in Matthew 10:3, Mark 3:18, Luke 6:14, and Acts of the Apostles 1:13.

Now as we listen or read John 1:45-51 we come across an apostle called Nathaniel ( a Hebrew name which means God gives or gift of God). Scholars think that this is Bartholomew, and other scholars conjecture it may be Matthias. As a friend of mine says, "Whatever!" I think the best conjecture is to stay with Bartholomew who is the same person as Nathaniel. Philip is the one who leads him to Jesus and Jesus tells him that he is an Israelite in whom there is no guile. He is then led to confess Jesus as the Messiah. There are a series of names given to Jesus in the episode of the call of the five apostles in John 1:35-51 which serve as a helpful look at how the apostles viewed Jesus in the early part of John's Gospel. It is an interesting section for the study of Christology in the New Testament. This is however an aside!

Pantaenus, an Alexandrian historian of the early church, gives a legend about Bartholomew preaching in India while using a Hebrew Gospel of Matthew. This legend is kept alive by people from India (Malabar) and I myself have heard it from a Christian from India and from an engineering student who is also from India. We have a young brother from India living with us and I will ask him about this traditional legend. We do know that the apostles are those who are sent by Jesus into the then known world and they do so after the death of Jesus. I think this is why the liturgy uses the selection from Revelation today which speaks of the four directions of the gates NEWS (North, East, West, South) and mentions that the twelve stones have the names of the twelve apostles written on them.

We all like heroes and the apostles are certainly among mine even moreso than my baseball heroes. As I reflect back on Fr. Ott's conferences on the apostles I realize how much I enjoyed them talking about the apostles with so little information. Today I am led to pray for my fellow brothers and sisters who are in India and who are doing a fine work in bringing in many vocations. Whether Bartholomew was there or not, there are apostles there now and some are in the novitiate there. A lot of them are Nathaniels, that is, people without guile. Amen.