Feast of Saint Matthias, Apostle

Chosen Through Faithfulness

Today we celebrate the feast of Saint Matthias. And if we are honest, he is one of those Apostles we do not know much about.

We never hear him speak. We do not know stories about his travels or miracles. Yet the Church honors him as one of the Twelve.

In the first reading, after the betrayal and death of Judas, the Apostles know something is missing. The number twelve mattered. It represented the twelve tribes of Israel, a sign that God was restoring His people. So they gather, pray, and choose someone to take Judas’ place.

What strikes me is this: Matthias had been there all along.

He was not one of the famous names. He was not Peter, James, or John. He was not always in the spotlight. But he had quietly remained faithful. The reading says he had been with Jesus from the beginning, through all those hidden years of ministry. He stayed close to the Lord even when no one noticed.

You know, over the years from high school seminary all the way through theology, I learned something.

There were always certain guys you thought, oh, he will definitely be ordained someday. They seemed to have everything together. And then there were others where you quietly thought, I am not sure he is going to make it.

But more often than not, it surprised you.

Sometimes the ones everyone expected to become priests left. And sometimes the quiet ones, the ones no one would have predicted, stayed faithful and were ordained.

I think there is something of Matthias in that.

Because God often works in ways we do not expect.

And maybe it is a reminder not to decide too quickly what God can do in someone else’s life, or even in our own.

Then in the Gospel, Jesus says something beautiful: “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you.”

That must have been true for Matthias in a very personal way. He probably never imagined he would become one of the Twelve. Yet Christ had already been preparing him.

And the same is true for us.

Sometimes we think holiness belongs to other people, the obvious saints, the gifted people, the people who seem important. But God often calls quiet, faithful people. People who simply remain near Him.

Saint John Chrysostom once said, “The one thing required is faithfulness.”

Not fame. Not recognition. Faithfulness.

And in today’s Gospel Jesus tells us what that faithfulness looks like: “Remain in my love.” Stay close to Him. Love one another. Bear fruit that lasts.

So maybe today we ask Saint Matthias to pray for us, that we may simply remain close to Jesus, faithful in the ordinary things of life, trusting that God may be doing more in us than we can yet see.