14 May 2018
Feast of St. Mathias, Apostle
There are two saints for whom I have special admiration; St. Matthias and Francis Xavier. Those familiar with the hagiography of these two saints will know that what they had in common was that they were both second string players. Francis Xavier did not warm the bench for long, he was busy doing other things but he was not St. Ignatius’ first choice to be the man to inaugurate the Jesuit enterprise in the Asian missions. The man Ignatius wanted had the vapors or some 16th century ailment and begged out. So Ignatius choose Xavier and he became the patron of the Missions. St. Matthias, as we read in today’s first reading, was present from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, and it sounds like he was doing all the work and getting none of the honor of being an apostle. But later he was chosen as one of the twelve. Recently, there has been greet interest and fascination with leadership studies. Perhaps today’s saint, St. Matthias reminds us that leaders are those who may be in our midst but we do not see them because of our expectations and prior judgements.