Salve, Regina, Mater Misericordiae.
In this extraordinary form of the Mass, we celebrate the feast of St. Matthias,
the Apostle who took the place of Judas, who betrayed our Lord.
And we have an example of fidelity in the person of St. Matthias,
who after receiving the ministry of an Apostle, preached our Lord, preached the Gospel for 30 years.
30 years in Judea and Cappadocia and Egypt and Ethiopia as well,
and then died a martyr being stoned to death by the Jews.
So we have his fidelity and the infidelity of Judas.
And the contrasting example of the two, Judas, who betrayed our Lord,
who perhaps was a good man before he became corrupted.
He was certainly accepted by our Lord.
He must have had some good in him and perhaps signs of being a good Apostle.
But he fell away little by little.
And because of his, we know he was a covetous man, greedy for money and material things perhaps as well.
He was probably very uncharitable and judgmental to the other Apostles.
And other vices that he must have had that led him away into vice,
into even hatred against his good master.
And perhaps a dislike even for the Blessed Virgin Mary,
who must have done all that she could to bring him around
and make him see the evil that he was doing
and the slippery slope that he was on and kept going further and further.
And because of his lack of humility, certainly his pride kept him from turning to Our Lady for her intercession,
to our Lord.
And because of his mercy for his help,
he didn't want to go to ask for help from our Lord and from Our Lady.
He thought he could lift him up by himself through his own efforts
to get out of the mire that he was in.
And so we need to see in the bad example of Judas what could happen to us,
each one of us, if we are not vigilant.
Not constantly aware, constantly protecting ourselves from the dangers of the world,
temptations of the world, greed, material things, honors.
But also even more so the dangers implanted in our own self and our fallen nature,
our sinful tendencies to pride, to selfishness, to lack of charity to our neighbor,
to focusing on the faults of our neighbor instead of ourselves,
which is probably what Judas did.
He started being judgmental to his brothers, to the other apostles,
who were very good examples.
And despite their faults too, they were growing in great strides
because they were so close to our Lord.
And they must have been, you know, growing in great strides and virtue.
And he probably saw that he wasn't and became envious and became,
you know, judgmental of them and perhaps hatred entered into his heart for them
and as well as for his good master, Jesus.
And here, Matthias, Matthias saw all this, must have been close to the apostles as well.
He was a witness of the resurrection.
He saw all this and yet was not affected,
but followed the good example of the other apostles and was named and nominated
by them to be the replacement of Judas.
And he received that grace from God in his appointment as apostle
and certainly put it into practice and bore fruit, bore abundant fruit
and became a great apostle, a great preacher, a great minister of our Lord
and died a blessed martyr.
So let us ask his intercession.
Let us ask his intercession to help us to as well to persevere,
to be faithful unto death through sufferings,
through the temptations of the world and the flesh and the devil
and to be victorious as he was in persevering unto death.
Jesus' resurrection sandwiched them in Christ's triumphant Kingdom.
He Duns
The scripture that we are given hooked upon by Christ.
We begin at the beginning and at the end.
deconstructing your lives and death.
Students look in perbach meio!?