📜Saint Bartholomew, often identified with Nathanael from the Gospel of Saint John, was one of the Twelve Apostles chosen by Christ. Recognized by Jesus as "a true Israelite, in whom there is no guile," he embraced the faith after Philip brought him to the Messiah. Tradition relates that after Pentecost, he preached the Gospel in India and Armenia, where he converted the king and queen. His apostolic work culminated in martyrdom, being flayed alive and then beheaded by order of the king's brother, sealing his witness with his own blood.
🙏 Introit (Ps 138:17 | ibid., 1-2)Mihi autem nimis bonoráti sunt amíci tui, Deus... I hold Your friends in high esteem, O God; their power is greatly strengthened. Ps. Lord, You test me and You know me; You know my death and my resurrection. ℣. Glory be to the Father…
📖 Epistle (I Cor 12:27-31)
Brethren: You are the Body of Christ and each one, a member of it. Thus God has established in the Church, first Apostles, second Prophets, and third Doctors; then those who work miracles, those who have the gift of healing, of assisting, of governing, of speaking various tongues, of interpreting revelations. Are all of them Apostles? Are all Prophets? All Doctors? Do all, perhaps, work miracles? Do all have the power to heal infirmities? Do all speak various tongues? Do all have the gift of interpreting them? Aspire, you, to the better gifts.
✝️ Gospel (Lk 6:12-19)
At that time, Jesus went up to a mountain to pray, and there He spent the night in prayer to God. When day came, He called His disciples and chose twelve from among them (whom He called Apostles): Simon, to whom He gave the name Peter, and Andrew, his brother, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, Matthew and Thomas, James, the son of Alphaeus, and Simon, called the Zealot, Judas, the brother of James, and Judas Iscariot, who was the traitor. Then, descending with them, He stopped on a plain with a great number of His disciples and a multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon, who had come to hear Him and to be cured of their infirmities. Those who were tormented by unclean spirits were also cured. And all the people sought to touch Jesus, because a power went out from Him and healed them all.
🤔 Reflections
✍️When Christ said, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile," He recognized in Nathanael (Bartholomew) the sincerity of heart, which is the first requisite for receiving the truth without resistance (Saint Augustine, Tractate on the Gospel of John 7, 17). The Lord goes up the mountain to pray before choosing the Twelve, teaching us that great decisions, especially those concerning the foundation of His Church, must be preceded by intense prayer, seeking the Father's will, not our own (Saint Ambrose, Exposition of the Gospel of Luke, V, 43). God establishes in the Church first the Apostles, for they are the roots planted by the hand of the heavenly Husbandman, from whose preaching the branches of faith sprout for the whole world (Saint Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job, XXVII, 21).
📜The Gospel of Saint Matthew complements Luke’s by listing the Apostles in pairs, joining Philip with Bartholomew, and details that they received authority to cast out unclean spirits and to heal every disease. Saint Mark adds that they were chosen "to be with Him and to be sent out to preach," and mentions the epithet "Boanerges" given to James and John. The Gospel of Saint John is crucial, as it narrates the calling of Nathanael (identified as Bartholomew), where Christ recognizes him under the fig tree and proclaims him "a true Israelite," a theological detail absent in the Synoptics.
🕊️Saint Paul, especially in the day's Epistle, elaborates on the function of the Apostles, placing them as the "first" gift in the structure of the Mystical Body of Christ, a hierarchical foundation. In Ephesians, he describes them as the "foundation" of the Church, with Christ as the cornerstone (Eph 2:20), conferring an ecclesiological dimension to the choice narrated in Luke. Additionally, in Galatians, Paul defends the divine origin of his own apostleship, mirroring Christ's sovereign election after a night of prayer (Gal 1:1), and in Romans, he underscores the indispensable necessity of the apostolic sending for the propagation of the faith (Rom 10:14-15).
🏛️The Roman Catechism elucidates that the faith of the Church, summarized in the Symbol, is called "the Apostles' Creed" because it is the same doctrine they received from Christ and preached. The constitution Pastor Aeternus of the First Vatican Council reaffirms that the apostolic college, chosen on the mountain as Luke narrates, was instituted by Christ as a stable body, whose authority and mission are perpetuated in the bishops in communion with the successor of Peter. The encyclical Satis Cognitum reinforces that the power conferred upon the Twelve was not a personal prerogative destined to disappear with them, but a permanent office for the salvation of souls, transmitted to their successors.
🧐 See English articles here.