August 24 – St Bartholomew, Apostle (Feast)

Antiphons at Lauds - Psalms of Sunday of the 1st week

1. This is my commandment: that you love one another as I have loved you.

2. No one has any love greater than this: that one gives up his life for his friends.

3. You are my friends, if you do that which I command you.

Eph. 2, 19-22

Now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone. In him all the building fitly framed together grows into a holy temple in the Lord: in him also you, through the Spirit, are built together in a habitation where God dwells.

Brethren, let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment: indeed, I judge not mine own self. For I know nothing by myself; yet I am not hereby justified, but he who judges me is the Lord. Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.

And these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollo for your sakes; that you might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another. For who makes thee to differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did receive it, why do you glory, as if you had not received it? Now you are full, now you are rich, you have reigned as kings without us: and I would to God you did reign, that we also might reign with you. For I think that God has set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; you are honourable, but we are despised. Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place; and labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it; being defamed, we intreat. We are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day.

I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you. For though you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have you not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel. Wherefore I beseech you, be you followers of me.

Bartholomew, or the son of Tholomy, is, the disciple with whom St Philip brought to our Lord, under the name of Nathanael, and whom the Master praised on account of his innocence and the simplicity of his heart. The Gospel of St John, never mentioning St Bartholomew among the apostles, says that Philip and Nathanael came together to Jesus and that he was among the disciples to whom the Saviour appeared after the resurrection on the shore of the sea of Galilee The other Gospels never use the name of Nathanael, but after Philip they always mention the name Bartholomew.

Born at Cana, in Galilee, he was placed by Jesus among the twelve. The account says that Philip met Nathanael and said to him: "The one of whom Moses has witnessed in the law and whom the prophets have announced, we have found: it is Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." Nathanael said to him: "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" Philip said to him: "Come and see." Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him and said of him: "That is a true Iaraelite in whom there is no guile." Nathanael said to him: "How do you know this of me?" Jesus answered: "Before Philip called you when you were under the fig-tree, I had seen you." Nathanael replied: "Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel."

From then on, Bartholomew was a witness of the principal actions of Jesus on earth. "The first gift vouchsafed to the Church by the Holy Spirit," says St Paul, "is the grace of the apostleship".

He preached the faith in Arabia Felix: according to certain traditions Bartholomew was flayed alive. St Bartholomew is the sixth in the list of twelve, as given by the Evangelists. Like the other Apostles he learned the divine law and made them known to the world, confirming them by his martyrdom. The feasts of the Apostles are spread throughout the liturgical cycle as if to show that the Apostles are the foundation on which the whole Church rests.

In joyfully celebrating the feast of St Bartholomew who, in heaven, praises God among the glorious choir of the apostles, may God grant to His Church to love what St Bartholomew believed and to preach what he himself taught.

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