Today's Feast: St. Bartholomew

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. ~John 12:24

Today's selection from Speaking to the Soul at the Episcopal Cafe is from the writings of Bl. John Henry Cardinal Newman, who reminds us that the "even, unvaried life," when lived properly for God, is not only acceptable to Him but also provides us with the means of growing ever more fully in His life and love. That was the lot of St. Bartholomew and the other apostles as well, Cardinal Newman says, and it was within his God-given life that "St. Bart" was "trained at length to give up his life for Christ, when He demanded it." What a relief and happiness to know that my humdrum life isn't so humdrum after all! God is here, leading me from glory to glory and drawing me ever closer to Him and my heavenly home. All I need do is die to self and live for Him. Thanks be to God!

An even, unvaried life is the lot of most men, in spite of occasional troubles or other accidents; and we are apt to despise it, and to get tired of it, and to long to see the world, -- or, at all events, we think such a life affords no great opportunity for religious obedience. To rise up, and go through the same duties, and then to rest again, day after day, -- to pass week after week, beginning with God’s service on Sunday, and then to our worldly tasks, -- so to continue till year follows year, and we gradually get old, -- an unvaried life like this is apt to seem unprofitable to us when we dwell upon the thought of it. Many indeed there are, who do not think at all; -- but live in their round of employments, without care about God and religion, driven on by the natural course of things in a dull irrational way like the beasts that perish.

But when a man begins to feel he has a soul, and a work to do, and a reward to be gained, greater or less, according as he improves the talents committed to him, then he is naturally tempted to be anxious from his very wish to be saved, and he says, “What must I do to please God?” And sometimes he is led to think he ought to be useful on a large scale, and goes out of his line of life, that he may be doing something worth doing, as he considers it. Here we have the history of St. Bartholomew and the other Apostles to recall us to ourselves, and to assure us that we need not give up our usual manner of life, in order to serve God; that the most humble and quietest station is acceptable to Him, if improved duly, -- nay, affords means for maturing the highest Christian character, even that of an Apostle. Bartholomew read the Scriptures and prayed to God; and thus was trained at length to give up his life for Christ, when He demanded it.

From Sermon XXVII on the Feast of Saint Bartholomew the Apostle by John Henry Newman, in Parochial and Plain Sermons, volume 2 (London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1891).