Bartholomew

Today is a major feast, a red letter day. We should be planning a solemn mass with full choir and a festive dinner, for this the Feast of St. Bartholomew. He is a saint about whom we know almost nothing. His name is listed only in three of the gospels (not in John). And even more, legends abound about what happened to Bartholomew. Some say he ended up in India, others suggest Armenia where evidently he was skinned alive. 

In the Hymnal 1982 there is only one hymn for this day (#280), written by John Ellerton, a 19th century hymn writer. The third stanza captures it, I think:

All his faith and prayer and patience, all his toiling and his strife, all are veiled from us, but written in the Lamb’s great book of life. 

The point here is that whatever happened in Bartholomew’s life it’s not written down for us here. We can’t turn to early Christian history books to read about Bartholomew, certainly not in the way we can about Thomas, or John of Patmos, or even Mary Magdalene. All is veiled. 

Except for one thing, which is not veiled, one thing we know “for sure” about St. Bartholomew. And that one thing is very significant. We know that he was a follower of Jesus. That’s enough, in many ways, because whether we die with a great deal of fame and recognition, or whether we die entirely unknown, each of us is known by God. And for those of us who are baptized into the great fellowship of Christ our life’s work is to remain faithful. What does that mean? For me, it means to keep walking in and toward the light of the good news which Jesus proclaimed and lived. Though let’s be clear also to state there are many ways to walk this walk. How I do it is different from how another travels it. The point is to be a disciple...whether we’re known by name is secondary. 

Mary Anne Evans was born in 1819, and died in 1880, but she isn’t known for being Mary Anne, but for her pen name, George Eliot. Her novels depict 19th century England with piercing reality, and perhaps the most well-known is Middlemarch. In that book George Eliot might have had Bartholomew in her mind when she wrote:

“For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs” (Middlemarch).

Let us pray. 

Almighty and everlasting God, who gave to your apostle Bartholomew grace truly to believe and to preach your Word: Grant that your Church may love what he believed and preach what he taught; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen.