Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
Today is the feast of St. Matthias, the Apostle, and we know that St. Matthias accompanied the Lord and the other Apostles from the baptism of John, that our Lord received, all the way up to and including the resurrection, of which he was a witness as well.
And after the betrayal of Judas, he was chosen by God, at the suggestion of Peter, the initiative of Peter, the first Pope, was chosen by God to replace Judas, to be joined to the twelve or to the eleven, and to reconstitute the twelve as the College of Apostles.
Let's just briefly now compare and contrast Judas and Matthias.
The one who betrayed our Lord and lost his place in the College of Apostles, the other who took his place.
If we look at Judas, some saints say of him that he didn't expect that his betrayal would lead to the actual crucifixion and execution of our Lord.
Some saints indicate that.
He knew that he was doing a great evil, but nevertheless thought that he could have control over it so that it wouldn't escalate to the point of our Lord actually being put to death.
In fact, he had escaped so many other times, etc.
So maybe that was in Judas' mind.
And maybe that's what we think sometimes as well when we sin.
This is really not that big.
I know more or less how far this will go, so I can calculate and sin.
Because I know it will only go this far, and the calculation pays off.
We fall for that, especially when it comes to deliberate, venial sins.
It's such a temptation to think, well, this is just such a small sin, it pays off in this instance.
It's not a big deal, the advantage is huge, the disadvantage, tiny, I'm going to sin.
Probably we don't articulate it that well in our minds, but sometimes there's a latent calculation behind our sins, that we can control them, that we can measure them, and that they're worth it.
But the truth is that they are always bigger than we can foresee, worse than we can foresee.
Judas, when he realized, and even then he didn't realize how great his sin was, despaired when he realized exactly what he had done.
He despaired.
Didn't foresee that, didn't calculate that, and yet it happened.
And though that's a grievous sin, a terrible sin, and I'm comparing it only to little sins, nevertheless, the principle remains.
We cannot foresee all the evil that will come, even from the least of our deliberate sins.
It's better not to sin, because in sinning, something is always lost.
But despite sin, something good will always come of it.
God works that way.
Despite our Lord being betrayed, the redemption of the world occurred, the salvation of mankind occurred, the Church was still built on twelve apostles, but nevertheless, something was lost in the process.
Judas really lost the apostleship.
Judas really, everything indicates, lost his soul in the process.
Not everything is lost when we sin, but something is always lost, nothing gained.
The salvation of the world still happened, the Church was still built on twelve apostles, just that some other apostle took his place.
Nothing was gained, something was really lost.
That's always what happens with sin.
Comparing and contrasting to Matthias, well, St. Matthias was quietly faithful from the baptism of our Lord all the way until his resurrection.
Just one of these apostles, or rather, one of these disciples that doesn't appear at all in this story, just quietly there doing his thing.
And that for us is a reminder that neither can we foresee what good things God has in store us for being quietly faithful, what graces depend on simply our quiet fidelity to our everyday duties.
He was unexpectedly made an apostle, beyond his expectations.
All he did was just the duties of a disciple.
Not even worthy of any mention until unexpectedly, guess what was the fruit of all that?
God chose him to take the place of Judas and to build his Church on him as one of the twelve.
So while the evil is always greater than we can foresee and always greater than we can calculate and always something is lost when we sin, on the other hand, the good is always greater than what we can hope for or imagine or expect or foresee or calculate because God is always bigger, both in our sins but also in our merits.
He rewards more than what we deserve.
His graces are always bigger than what we can expect.
That's why, concluding with the most fundamental of the laws of moral theology, avoid evil it's bigger than you think.
You lose something bigger in the process than you expect.
Avoid sin, trust God, and do the good.
It's better than you think.
The reward is better than you can imagine and the graces that depend on your fidelity to good are far beyond your expectations, our expectations.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.