Lectionary: 629The wall of the city had twelve courses of stones as its foundation, on which were inscribed the twelve names
of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb.
When you see the Lectionary number in the 600-range -- today it's 629 -- you know we're taking a reading that directly concerns the saint's day; in this case, the Apostle Bartholomew. From its earliest days the Church claimed its four pillars: one, holy, catholic and apostolic.
In fact there were many apostolic churches in the Roman empire and those claims remain today among the eastern and western churches. Rome claimed two apostles, Peter and Paul. Jerusalem had Saint James and Saint John, and so forth. The history, like all religious histories, is complicated and disputed. As any Christian will tell you, "We'll all get along splendidly when everyone agrees with me."
The story of Bartholomew is even more complicated because we're not too sure who he was. The name appears only four times in the New Testament, and only on a list among other apostles. Today we hear a reading from the Gospel of Saint John about Nathaniel because they may have been the same person.
Tradition teaches that all of the Apostles except John died a martyr's death; Bartholomew was flayed, a particularly revolting and painful method of killing.
We have only to read the news out of Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt and other countries to know that men, women and children are still barbarically abused and murdered because they are Christian. More often than not they are not given an opportunity to renounce their faith; they are caught up in the indifferent machinery of genocide, without regard for their individual character, integrity or even their ability.
If the opposite of love is not hate but fear, we can suppose Christians represent something fearful to many people. Martyred Christians are destroyed because faith, generosity and honesty threaten some people. It is easier to kill than it is to hear the truth or to live virtuously.
A disciple of the Crucified cannot be surprised when the world turns hostile. We can only pray that: if we are caught up in that mindless cycle of mass killing; if we should die with even less recognition than the world gave to Bartholomew or Nathaniel or whatever his name was, we will at least be "guilty" of being innocent.
As I celebrated the Mass of this feast, I pursued further that notion of Bartholomew as unknown and anonymous. First, the experience of victims of torture tells us that the experience of shame, helplessness and abandonment are as painful as the physical suffering. Their tormentors' verbal abuse intensifies their suffering. That their suffering is hidden to an uncaring, indifferent world makes it all the worse. It seems utterly meaningless. Holocaust deniers, in particular, intensify the suffering of survivors and their families. What could be more cruel to a victim than to say, "It never happened?"
ReplyDeleteOn this feast you'll recall that Bartholomew, according to tradition, was flayed, a particularly savage method of killing.
As I considered that dimension of martyrdom, I was struck by the fact that Jesus "saw" Nathaniel under the fig tree, and that the young man was overwhelmed by that. He cried, "You are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel!"
Although Bartholomew/Nathaniel remains practically unknown to us, except for the churches and hospitals named after him, he was known by the Lord. And that made all the difference!