Feast of Saint Matthias, Apostle

Lectionary: 564 

have told you this so that my joy might be in you
and your joy might be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

As death approached, Saint Francis wrote one final statement to  guide his disciples. He had written two rules, a dozen admonitions, several letters, some songs, prayers, and poetry. At the end he wrote his testament. Recalling the beginning of his religious life, he said, “The Lord gave me brothers.” He had not set out to start a religious order. Nor did it just happen. The Lord did it.

By that time the community had grown beyond all expectations. It had struggled to identify its mission, traditions, and spirit. It had suddenly become the largest religious community in the Roman Catholic Church with all the bureaucratic complexity that entails. If directing a professional army with incentives and threats is difficult, leading a mob of volunteers, each with his own idiosyncratic reason for being here, is far more difficult. 
But, remembering the early years, Francis said, “The Lord gave me brothers.” When we celebrate an apostle, we should remember that essential relationship of Jesus’ disciples. We are like sisters and brothers to one another. Each is beloved in the eyes of our Father; each is held precious in the arms of our Shepherd; each is cherished by the embracing Holy Spirit. We come together not because we like the doctrines of the church; not because we’re into its liturgies; but because God has selected us one by one and placed us together.

Like the children of married parents, we are given to one another by the One who chooses. The old saying is also true of the church, “You can choose your friends; your family, you’re stuck with.”

We stay together because our differences are not half as important as our communion.  If at times we feel like leaving, we don’t because we obey the Lord and not our feelings.

In such moments the Spirit calls us to “consider how to rouse one another to love and good works.”

But, more often, we look for and find inspiration in one another. During those moments when I feel disappointment in my church, I should remember I wasn’t given to this church to tell them how to be Catholic or Christian, but to be inspired by my brothers and sisters. 

Inspiration is there when I look for it.