HOMILIES PREACHED BY FATHER ALTIER ON THE FEAST OF SAINT BARTHOLOMEW,APOSTLE

As we celebrate today the feast of Saint Bartholomew, we have to remember that Bartholomew, like many people in ancient times, had two names: Bartholomew and Nathanael. That is why we hear about Nathanael in the Gospel reading today because it really is the same person. At the very end of the Gospel reading today, Our Lord says of Nathanael that he is a true Israelite; that in him there is no guile. He was single-hearted; he was focused on the Lord.

There is a prophecy from the ancient times of the Old Testament that talked about how each Israelite would have his own fig tree and be able to sit underneath it. When the Lord is touching upon this point and telling him: "I saw you under the fig tree," it sounds like a foolish point to us. Why is Nathanael saying, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God," just because Jesus said, "I saw you under the fig tree"? To us, it would be like saying: "I saw you sitting on your front porch." Well, the difference is that it had all these connotations of what it meant to be a true Israelite. That is the point.

Friday August 24, 2001

Feast of Saint Bartholomew

Reading (Revelation 21:9b-14)

Gospel (St. John 1:45-51)

When He was able to see that Nathanael was under the fig tree, Nathanael was there for a reason because for him that was the place where he was able to show his belief in God and the fulfillment of the ancient prophecies. When the Lord says, "I saw you under the fig tree," Nathanael recognized that he was there for a reason. That is where the Lord saw him, and that is why the Lord was able to say that. Bartholomew's response, then, is: "You are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel."

Then the Lord goes on to tell him: "You will see the heavens opened and the angels of the Lord ascending and descending upon the Son of man." He tells him that because of his singleness of heart he is going to see this wondrous thing. When we go back to the Book of Genesis, we see the same thing: the angels of the Lord ascending and descending on the place where the Lord appeared to Jacob (whose name was changed to Israel); the angels of the Lord were going up and down upon a ladder. We see that, but the point we have to understand in what the Lord is talking about in this ascending and descending is that it shows, first of all, that the Lord is the Temple of God; but also, it talks about going both directions, so it is the new Jerusalem that is being spoken of. To be able to see the angels ministering to the Lord in Heaven is to be able to see that new Jerusalem of which he would be a part; he would be one of those twelve apostles whose names were written on the doors and he would be part of the foundation of that new Jerusalem.

The Church gives to us that reading from the Book of Revelation today because of this little part that the Lord tells Nathanael in the Gospel reading. It is a prefiguration for him. It is a little promise that the Lord makes to Nathanael: If he maintains that singleness of heart, that lack of guile, he is going to be able to see the glory of God in the new and eternal Jerusalem and, in fact, he would be part of that foundation.

Yesterday, in the readings, we talked about being the bride of Christ; how each one of us - each soul - is the bride of the Lord. Today in the reading we hear about that bride. The bride is the new Jerusalem and each person who is a member of the new Jerusalem is a bride of Christ, is part of that one bride; but each of us, individually, takes that as well. We too, then, are called to be without guile, like a faithful bride who has but one husband and her heart is not wandering all over looking for other men, or whatever it may be. But that heart is focused solely on our one spouse, on the Groom of our souls, Jesus Christ, so that we too will truly be without guile. And we will see the angels of the Lord ascending and descending on the Son of man because we will be members of the new and eternal Jerusalem. We will be members of the very spouse of Jesus Christ.

Note: Father Altier does not write his homilies in advance, but relies solely upon the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.

Tuesday August 24, 2004

Feast of Saint Bartholomew

Reading (Revelation 21:9b-14)

Gospel (St. John 1:45-51)

Today, as we celebrate the feast of Saint Bartholomew, remember that Nathaniel and Bartholomew are the same person. This is why we have this particular reading from the gospel of Saint John about Nathaniel and about what Jesus had to say regarding him, Here is a true Israelite. There is no duplicity in him. Now, Nathaniel initially says to Phillip, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Remember, the word Nazareth comes from the Hebrew word Nazer which means, “a shoot” as in “a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse.” And so, Nazareth was founded by a small group of people, the House of David, who believed fully well that the Messiah was going to come from among their number. Of course, the people of Israel thought that they were nuts and that is exactly why Nathaniel is asking the question he is asking. Nazareth is a little Podunk town out in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of people who they thought were pretty crazy. Yet, this is where God chose to send His Son.

Now we can look at what the angel says to Saint John, “Come here. I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” We are each the bride of the Lamb and we can say, “Can anything good come out of this?” Look at whom He has chosen to be His bride. It is the new Jerusalem, but we are the members of the new Jerusalem. In baptism, we have been made members of Jesus Christ, and, just as in marriage, the two shall become one, so we have become fully incorporated into Christ Himself. We, together, make up the bride of Christ; we are to be united with Him; we are to be faithful to Him; we are to love Him and to serve Him. And, of course, we know, too, that God has chosen (for those whom He has called to Himself) not the ones whom the world would consider the greatest but the ones the world considers the least. If we were to line up a whole bunch of people and say, “Now which ones here most deserve to be members of the bride of Christ?” we would probably not be among those who were chosen by the worldly types. And, so, people can look and say, “Can anything good come out of this? Out of this group of people? Out of the Church?”

Of course, on the natural level the answer is pretty doubtful. But this is not on the natural level because the Bridegroom of our souls is not natural but is supernatural. He is God, and if we are united with Him as a bride and a bridegroom are united, the two become one. Therefore, we share in His divine nature and in His divine life. The good comes out of Christ and not out of us. It is His life and it is His love in us that He is giving to us. We, then, are able to turn and offer this back so that we can live in a divine way; we can serve in a divine way; we can love in a divine way. This, not because of anything within ourselves that is so good, but rather because of Him who is perfectly good who is united to us. What a blessing! What a gift that God has given to us to call us to this kind of glory, to this union with Christ!

But that means that He wants from us the same thing that he saw in the apostle, Bartholomew (Nathaniel). That is, He wants us to be true Israelites with no duplicity, to be single-heartedly in love with Him. It does not mean to be pulled here and there or to be seeking our own will while giving lip service to Him. But, rather, to be seeking Him alone; to be seeking perfect union with Him; to be offering ourselves in every way for Him; to be loving Him at every moment of every day. Because we are members of the new Israel, of the new Jerusalem, we are called to that single-hearted nature of love. We are to be perfectly united to the bridegroom of our souls and to be completely in love with Him. That is what it means to a member of the new Israel without duplicity, without anything standing between Him and ourselves because we are united with Him perfectly and completely.

Therefore, we want to open ourselves, that is, to open our hearts entirely to Him; to hold nothing back; to have nothing in the way and to get ourselves out of the way because we have given ourselves completely to Him and we have received Him completely to ourselves. We are to live His life and we are to allow Him to live in us and through us. We are to be single-heartedly devoted to Him alone. That is our glory. That is our call and it is something supernatural. If you sit back and say, “I cannot do it”, then you are right - by yourself, that is. But, Jesus can do it in you because He can do all things and with Him nothing is impossible. It is even possible for Him to take the likes of us and make us the bride of the Lamb and to make us the new Israel with no duplicity in our hearts. Only He can do that in us, and only if we cooperate since He is not going to force it on us. What is more, we have to see that he has done this in us. Let the people of the world look and say, “Can anything good come out of this?” and let them see that the good which is coming out of us is the love of Jesus Christ Himself, which is perfectly good

*This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.

Saint Bartholomew: A Man Without Duplicity

Wednesday August 24, 2005

Feast of Saint Bartholomew, Apostle

Reading (Revelation 21:9b-14)

Gospel (St. John 1:45-51)

In the Gospel reading today, we hear Nathaniel speaking to the apostle Philip, and he says to Philip, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Now we ask ourselves: Why would he say such a thing? Well, you can put it into two points of context.

First of all, for Philip to come up to Nathaniel (who is also known as Bartholomew) and to say to him, “We found the Messiah,” just put yourself into that situation. What if somebody came up to you and said, “Guess what! We found the one we’ve been waiting for! The one promised in the Scriptures, we found him!” What would your initial reaction be? To jump up and say, “Let’s go,” or to say, “Sure you have. We’ve been waiting for a couple of thousand years; why would we think it’s going to happen now?” One can understand why there would be a little bit of incredulity right from the start.

Yet, at the same time, there is more. Nazareth is a place that has its name from the Hebrew word Nazar, which means “a shoot.” In the Book of Isaiah, we are told that a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse. They knew which family was going to bear the Messiah because it was from the line of David. They did not know who it was going to be. They did not know which sibling it may have been, and so on, but they knew generally which tribe and which family the Messiah was going to come from. And so they founded a town because this little group of people knew that from their numbers the Messiah would come, the shoot that was promised. They founded a place and called it by the title which they expected to be fulfilled: Nazar – Nazareth.

These people were made fun of; they were ridiculed and rejected. Nazareth would have been a little tiny Podunk place out in the middle of nowhere that would have had no more than a couple of dozen people living in it, a very, very small place. In fact, if you go to Nazareth today, the Church of the Annunciation sits over the entire town of ancient Nazareth. That is how small it was. Today Nazareth is a pretty large city, one of the Christian cities in Israel, but if you go to the Church of the Annunciation, there you will find all of the places where people lived in ancient Nazareth. There is a particular cave there that has always been reverenced as the home of the Holy Family. These were not people who were living in the lap of luxury. They were not even people who would have been living according to modern standards at the time. They lived in caves. So one can understand, putting it that way, that these people were seen as being kind of backwards. They were seen as being a little odd and rather eccentric. They though the Messiah was going to come from their numbers – imagine that! They were right.

There is another prophecy about each Israelite sitting under his own tree. And so when Jesus looks at Nathaniel and says, Before Philip called you, I saw you sitting under the fig tree, Nathaniel understood immediately that this was the fulfillment of prophecy. Not only was the prophecy regarding the Messiah fulfilled and suddenly he began to recognize this in his own mind, but also what Our Lord had told him, which is why he would respond by saying, You are the Son of God. This is why Jesus would say, You believe that just because I told you I saw you sitting under the fig tree? The whole exchange would seem a little bit odd to us, but if you put it into the context of what had been prophesied, the things that needed to be fulfilled with regard to the Messiah, and the natural doubts that the people would have had, then we can understand why Saint Bartholomew would have had a few doubts and how his doubts were completely removed by this one little statement, because Our Lord said of him that he is a true Israelite in whom there is no duplicity.

No duplicity means that as soon as he recognizes the truth, he is going to reject everything contrary and embrace the truth in its fullness. There is no falsehood. There is no deceit. There is no selfishness. He was a man of virtue and he would give his life for the Lord – in a most grueling manner, actually. Saint Bartholomew was flayed; he was skinned alive. That is how they killed him. So we see that once he understood Who Jesus was his entire life was changed and he dedicated himself one hundred percent to the service of God.

Now we need to look at our own selves because we know Who Jesus is and we have a few changes we probably need to make because most of us are probably not one hundred percent devoted to the service of God to make sure that we are seeking to do His Will in all things. That is the lesson we have to learn from Saint Bartholomew today: We need to be without duplicity. We cannot put up a façade and make ourselves look nice while underneath we are really pretty rotten. We cannot be living this dual life where we want people to think we are saints while when we are on our own we are anything but. We need to be striving for true holiness. We need to be striving to know and to do the Will of God. We need to be seeking perfect union with Jesus Christ. That is what our lives have to be about. Then we can be members of the New Israel, the new people of God, without duplicity, seeking Jesus Christ with a pure heart so that there is no falsehood in us, that there is nothing phony, but rather that what we are seeking and living is one and the same: Jesus Christ – the Truth, the Messiah, the Son of God, the One Whom we have found, the One Whom we know to be true – and to model our lives after Him and to change so that we are seeking to live only for God every moment of every day of our lives.

*This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.

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