Feast of St Bartholomew/Nathanael

Reflections following the Daily Liturgical cycle

Friday, August 24, 2007
Rv 21:9b- 14

Psalm 145:10-11. 12-13. 17-18

John 1:45-51

From today’s readings: “The wall of the city had twelve courses of stones as its foundation, on which were inscribed the twelve names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb.... The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth.... Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

Bartholomew/Nathanael

Nathanael did see greater things. He was one of those to whom Jesus appeared on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias after his resurrection (see John 21:1-14). They had been fishing all night without success. In the morning, they saw someone standing on the shore though no one knew it was Jesus. He told them to cast their net again, and they made so great a catch that they could not haul the net in. Then John cried out to Peter, “It is the Lord.”

“There is no duplicity in him.” What a great compliment Jesus gave when he spoke thus about Bartholomew (also known as Nathanael). So often, sin sits in a stealth mode in the duplicity of our hearts, as we delight in our own cleverness in disguising our motives and misleading others in ways that are not “technically” dishonest.

To be sure, charity and humility demand something from us akin to duplicity, as we endeavor to focus on one aspect of a given action while downplaying another. For instance, if I were to make a generous donation to a charitable cause, but sought to stay out of the limelight, I wouldn’t necessarily be guilty of duplicity. However, if I flatly denied my contribution, or conversely, if I were motivated primarily by secret hopes to gain fame from it, then the charge of duplicity would be justified.

Too often, we excuse our lapses into duplicity, and can even convince ourselves of its necessity and inevitability, when the light of Christ’s Truth would remind us that the opposite of duplicity is sincerity and integrity, traits which shine so brightly in the life of Christ and are thus also found in the lives of those who, like Bartholomew, seek to follow Christ and model their lives on His example.

Courtesy of Immaculate Heart Retreat Center