“Your friends make known, O Lord, the glorious splendor of your Kingdom.” What a wonderful message we hear today in our psalm response as we celebrate St Bartholomew today, one of the members of Christ group of apostles. All of us as Christ’s disciples in the modern world are to make the glory of his message known in our words and our actions.
The Gospel today refers to Bartholomew as Nathaniel. It recounts the beginning of Jesus’ friendship with Nathaniel. Upon seeing Bartholomew from a distance, Jesus states that there is no duplicity in him, meaning the he is not two-faced, not deceitful, not dishonest, not divided in his loyalty. We can intuit from the description that Bartholomew is a good, honest man of Israel, a man of prayer and devotion who was called to be a follower of Jesus. And Bartholomew responds to this invitation by professing what he sees in Jesus: you are the Son of God - you are the King of Israel. In the Beatitudes, Jesus stated: “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” That definitely describes Bartholomew and his recognition of Jesus as the Son of God in today’s Gospel.
The Bible does not say what happened to Bartholomew in the establishment of the Early Church after Christ’s death and resurrection. Tradition has passed down that he went to the East on his missionary travels and died a martyr’s death in Armenia, which is in West Asia near the countries of Turkey, Iran, Azerbaijan and Georgia.
As you are still at the beginning of a new school year, continuing on your journey of faith and journey through life, we might ask ourselves: If Jesus saw us today, just like he saw Bartholomew that day, how would Jesus see us according to our words and actions? Would we be seen as a young man or young woman of prayer, as a disciple of Christ who is commitment to a life of faith, who lives the true value of the Gospel in his or her life. Let us ask to the Lord to bless us on our journeys this school, through the joys and the challenges, through the ups and downs we will have on our journey of faith.
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