Saint Matthias and Apostolic Succession

May 14th is the Feast Day of Saint Matthias.  Not only is this a remembrance of this important saint but it is also a remembrance of an important event in the development of our Holy Catholic Church. 

During Jesus’s public ministry, he personally chose twelve men to mentor and prepare to continue his Church after his return to Heaven.   As St. Matthew recorded in his Gospel:  “These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John;  Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus;  Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him”  (10:2-4).  

As St. Matthew indicated, Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus and conspired with the Jewish officials to have Jesus arrested and executed by the Romans.  Soon after, Judas took his own life. 

On the third day after his Crucifixion and Death, Jesus rose from the dead.  He stayed with his remaining eleven Apostles for the next forty days, instructing them and further preparing them for the ministerial, preaching and leadership roles that they would perform for the Church after he returned to Heaven.  Jesus ascended into Heaven forty days after his Resurrection. Ten days after that, he sent his Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and his Most Blessed Mother at Pentecost.  

Jesus chose twelve men to be his Apostles.  This choice was not some random happenstance.  Jesus purposefully chose twelve in reference to the twelve sons of Jacob (Israel) and the twelve tribes of Israel.  So after Judas’s removal from the group of the Apostles, there were eleven remaining.  

Following Jesus’s Ascension, Peter recognized the necessity of replacing Judas.  Acts of the Apostles (1:15-26) details how Judas’s successor was chosen.  Peter addressed a group of 120 disciples including the Apostles and brought this matter to their attention.   Two faithful men, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus, and Matthias, were put forth as candidates to replace Judas.  The group prayed and guided by the Holy Spirit, Matthias was chosen by lots to become an Apostle.  When Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to the Apostles and Mary on Pentecost, Matthias received the Holy Spirit just the same as the original Apostles and Mary Most Blessed. 

After being selected to replace Judas, Matthias is not mentioned anywhere else in the Acts of the Apostles or in the rest of the New Testament.   There are several traditions which claim to record Matthias life but very little is definitively known about him.  “We know nothing else about him, if not that he had been a witness to all Jesus' earthly events (cf. Acts 1:26), remaining faithful to him to the end,” said Pope Benedict XVI during a General Audience on 18 October 2006.  

The selection of Matthias to replace Judas and become an Apostle is the first instance of Apostolic Succession in the history of the Catholic Church.  Apostolic Succession is the unbroken spiritual lineage and authority of the current leadership of the Church stretching back to the original Apostles chosen by Christ to lead his Church on Earth.  

Quoting Lumen Gentium of the Second Vatican Council, the Catechism of the Catholic Church declares

"Just as the office which the Lord confided to Peter alone, as first of the apostles, destined to be transmitted to his successors, is a permanent one, so also endures the office, which the apostles received, of shepherding the Church, a charge destined to be exercised without interruption by the sacred order of bishops." Hence the Church teaches that "the bishops have by divine institution taken the place of the apostles as pastors of the Church, in such wise that whoever listens to them is listening to Christ and whoever despises them despises Christ and him who sent Christ."  (paragraph 862).  

For forty days, Jesus instructed and mentored his remaining eleven Apostles to prepare them for assuming the leadership role in his Church.   At any time during these forty days, Jesus could have personally chosen a successor for Judas.  Instead, he relied upon Peter and the eleven Apostles and the Holy Spirit to select Judas’s successor.  In doing so, Jesus established the practice of Apostolic Succession.  Matthias is thus the first chosen successor of the Apostles.  Yes, Matthias knew Jesus on Earth and was faithfully devoted to him.  It was Peter (the first Pope) and the other Apostles (the first Bishops) working with the Holy Spirit who chose Matthias to continue the Apostolic authority established by Jesus.  The Apostles and St. Paul would subsequently appoint bishops over the course of their lifetimes to continue and perpetuate the Apostolic mission.  

We have just witnessed the latest manifestation of the Apostolic Succession.  Just last week, Robert Cardinal Prevost was chosen to become our Pope Pius XIV. 

May the Holy Spirit guide Pope Pius XIV and may  Saint Peter, the Apostles and Saint Matthias intercede for Pope Pius XIV as he continues to fulfill the Apostolic Succession first established in the first days after Jesus’s Ascension into Heaven.  Amen.

[Author’s Note:  there was an error in the original draft which was pointed out on Facebook and has been corrected.]