How many of you have ever heard of Pope St. John Paul II the Great? All hands! Great! How many of you have ever heard of the mother of this great saint? What was her name? Besides being the mother of a Pope, what is she famous for? No hands.
Which of these two people was holier, do you think? We don’t know the answer to this question of course, but we know that fame does not even come into the question when God evaluates a person. The “nobodies” of this world are often more important in God’s eyes than the “somebodies.”
Today we celebrate the feast day of a “famous” nobody—St. Bartholomew. He, as we know, was one of the twelve Apostles. Does anyone know more about him? Two hands only! Yes, he was martyred in the most atrocious way, by being slowly skinned alive.
To celebrate Bartholomew’s feast day, we read about the greatest city ever built (Revelation 21:9-14).
“The angel spoke to me, saying, ‘Come here. I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.’ He took me in spirit to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. It gleamed with the splendor of God.”
Imagine a city so beautiful, well-constructed, and radiant that it is the bride of God’s only Son! This is a city much greater than the holiest of all cities—Jerusalem in its prime. This city is being built, not on earth, but in heaven. It is built with the living stones of saints and martyrs who were loyal to Jesus. It is the “new Jerusalem.”
Now comes the shocking part.
“The wall of the city had twelve courses of stone as its foundation, on which were inscribed the twelve names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb.”
Imagine this! St. Bartholomew, one of the world’s nobodies, has his name inscribed on one of the foundation stones of the new Jerusalem! If we were designing this city, whose names would we choose to be inscribed? Famous world leaders, humanitarians, Popes, great theologians? God chose the lowly Apostles to be the ones recognized as the founders of the greatest organization on the face of the earth.
We have one short excerpt in John’s gospel that talks about Bartholomew (identified with his other name, Nathanael) (John 1:45-51).
“Philip found Nathanael and told him, ‘We have found the one about whom Moses wrote…Jesus, son Joseph, from Nazareth. But Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come from Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’ Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, ‘Here is a true child of Israel. There is no duplicity in him.’”
Jesus, then told Nathanael that he “saw” him sitting under a fig tree when Philip approached him. Realizing how Jesus knew him even without meeting him, he made a profession of faith:
“Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.”
Though Bartholomew was a skeptic, who looked down on the people of Nazareth, he was straightforward in his attitude. Once he met Jesus, his heart was moved and he did a complete turnaround. He is the first person recorded in Scripture to proclaim Jesus as God’s Son.
Bartholomew has much to teach us today. Let the first lesson be humility. Let us be content with our “nobody-hood,” and value only the approval of God, in the midst of a world where everyone strives to be a “somebody.”
Footnote: John Paul II’s mother was Amelia Wojtyla.
