Feast Day: February 24 (Traditional Roman Calendar; transferred to February 25 in leap years)
I. The Calling of an Apostle
Saint Matthias holds a unique distinction among the Twelve: he was the only Apostle chosen not by Christ during His earthly ministry, but after the Lord’s Ascension, by the prayer of the nascent Church and the direct intervention of the Holy Ghost. His election is recorded in the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, where Saint Peter, exercising his primacy, gathered the brethren—about one hundred and twenty in number—to fill the place vacated by the traitor Judas Iscariot.
The criteria Peter set forth are themselves a treasure of apostolic theology:
“Wherefore of these men who have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus came in and went out among us, beginning from the baptism of John, until the day wherein he was taken up from us, one of these must be made a witness with us of his resurrection.” (Acts 1:21–22, Douay-Rheims)
Two men were proposed: Joseph called Barsabas, surnamed the Just, and Matthias. After prayer—“Thou, Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen” (Acts 1:24)—lots were cast, and the lot fell upon Matthias. He was thus numbered with the eleven Apostles, completing the sacred college of the Twelve, which mystically corresponds to the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve foundations of the heavenly Jerusalem (Apoc. 21:14).
II. The Hidden Years and the Witness Borne
Sacred Scripture is silent regarding Matthias after Pentecost, but Tradition preserves his memory. He had been, according to the consistent testimony of the Fathers, one of the seventy-two disciples whom Our Lord sent forth two by two (Luke 10:1). Saint Clement of Alexandria, in his Stromata, writes of him with reverence, attributing to him a spirituality marked by severe mortification of the flesh and a constant warring against the disordered passions. Clement records this saying of Matthias: “We must combat the flesh, and make use of it, without indulging it in any unlawful gratification. As to the soul, we must develop her power by faith and knowledge.”
This counsel reveals a man formed wholly in the school of Christ—one who understood that apostleship is not principally a matter of words but of crucified life.
III. The Apostolic Mission
The early traditions, gathered by Eusebius of Caesarea, Saint Nicephorus, and the Synopsis of Saint Dorotheus, hold that Matthias preached the Gospel in Judea first, then in regions to the east. Several ancient witnesses send him into Ethiopia—understood in the ancient sense as the lands south of the Caspian Sea or near Colchis (modern Georgia)—where he labored among a barbarous people, enduring great hardships. Other traditions, particularly those preserved in the West, record his preaching in Cappadocia and along the shores of the Caspian.
A constant feature of these accounts is the violence of his sufferings. He is said to have been seized, scourged, and at length crowned with martyrdom. The most widespread tradition holds that he was stoned by the Jews of Judea and, while yet living, beheaded with an axe in the Roman manner—which is why sacred iconography depicts Saint Matthias bearing an axe or halberd, the instrument of his consummation.
IV. The Relics and Veneration
The relics of Saint Matthias are venerated principally in two places. Saint Helena, mother of Constantine, is said to have translated a portion of his sacred remains to Rome, where they rest beneath the high altar of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. A second and substantial portion was brought to Trier in Germany, where the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Matthias preserves what is the only known tomb of an Apostle north of the Alps—a place of pilgrimage for many centuries.
V. Lessons for the Faithful
The figure of Saint Matthias offers the Christian soul several profound considerations:
On hidden fidelity. Matthias walked with the Lord throughout His public ministry, witnessed the Passion, beheld the Risen Christ, and yet remained unnamed among the Gospels. He served without recognition, persevering in obscurity until the hour of his election. Here is a model for all who labor in the vineyard without earthly reward: God sees what is done in secret, and in His time He calls forth His chosen ones.
On filling the place of the fallen. Where Judas defected, Matthias stood firm. The Church’s first official act after the Ascension was not to lament the betrayer but to fill his place—a reminder that the work of God advances despite the failures of men, and that vocations are not extinguished by the unworthiness of any one soul, however high his office had been.
On mortification. The counsel preserved by Saint Clement—that the flesh must be combated and the soul nourished by faith and knowledge—is the ancient ascetical doctrine of the Church, the same teaching Saint Paul gave: “I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway” (1 Cor. 9:27).
VI. A Brief Prayer to Saint Matthias
O glorious Saint Matthias, who wast chosen by divine lot to fill the place left vacant by the fallen Judas, obtain for me the grace of fidelity unto death. Teach me to walk hidden with Christ, to mortify the unruly desires of my flesh, and to bear faithful witness to the Resurrection of Our Lord, both by word and by the integrity of my life. Through thy intercession may I, too, be found worthy to be numbered among the friends of the Lamb in the heavenly Jerusalem. Amen.
VII. For Further Study
If this hagiography has stirred in you a desire to know the Apostles more deeply, the Lives of the Saints learning path would be most fruitful, particularly tracing the labors and deaths of the Twelve as the foundation stones of the Church. Alternately, the Church History path opens with the Apostolic Age, where the missionary endeavors of men like Matthias are set within the broader expansion of the Faith.
A worthy devotional companion is the recitation of the Litany of the Apostles on the feast days of the Twelve, that the Church on earth may be ever joined to her foundations in heaven.
Sancte Matthia, ora pro nobis.