“It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you.”
The modern world believes endlessly in self-selection. We are told to invent ourselves, define ourselves, and choose ourselves. Yet Christianity begins in the opposite direction: I do not ultimately choose Christ as though I were selecting an item from a catalog. Rather, I awaken one day to discover that Christ has been pursuing me all along.
2. Meditatio
Before I was banned by Bishop Patrick J. Zurek from participating in ministry in 2019, I was deeply involved in ACTS retreats. At one point I was chosen by lot to direct a Teen ACTS retreat, and in turn I chose members of the retreat team by using that same curious and ancient method.
At first the whole business of drawing lots struck me as terribly odd. It seemed dangerously close to leaving sacred things to chance. Yet the older I grow, the more I suspect that what we call “chance” is often simply providence refusing to remove its mask.
The Apostles did not blindly toss dice into the air without thought. They first prayed, reflected, discussed, and selected worthy candidates. Matthias did not wander in from the marketplace by accident. The community had already recognized his fidelity. The lot merely surrendered the final verdict to God.
So too with my own life.
ACTS Core had discerned who might serve on a retreat. I had discerned who was eligible for my team. Bishop Zurek later discerned that I was no longer eligible to participate. Human judgment remained everywhere present. Yet above and beneath all those decisions lies another mystery altogether: the terrifying possibility that God is still somehow writing straight with crooked lines.
When I became an ACTS director, I was tempted to congratulate myself. I imagined that perhaps I had arrived there through superior wisdom, holiness, or leadership. But age has a marvelous way of humiliating vanity gently.
I now see that much of my life has been shaped by things I did not engineer: the family I was born into, the parish that formed me, the people who crossed my path, the books handed to me, the retreats I reluctantly attended, the failures that wounded me, and even the doors later closed in my face.
Like Matthias, I was chosen partly through circumstances I never controlled.
And perhaps that is one of the most liberating truths in Christianity: God’s grace does not depend entirely upon my brilliance. If it did, Heaven would be sparsely populated indeed.
The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children. I think the same is true of vocation. The great saints often appear almost accidentally placed into history, like seeds scattered by a farmer who trusts the wind.
Matthias is remembered not because he campaigned for apostleship, but because he remained faithful long enough to be available when God called his name.
That thought comforts me enormously.
For perhaps holiness is less about climbing upward through ambition and more about quietly remaining where grace can find us.
3. Oratio
Lord Jesus Christ, You chose fishermen, tax collectors, zealots, doubters, and finally Matthias by lot.
Teach me to stop imagining that my life depends entirely upon my own cleverness.
When pride tells me I earned every grace, remind me how much has simply been given.
When disappointment tells me I have been discarded, remind me that Your providence still moves quietly through doors both opened and closed.
Grant me the humility to accept being chosen, the courage to accept being passed over, and the faith to believe that even painful detours can still become roads toward sanctity.
Like Matthias, let me remain faithful enough to be found ready when You call.
Saint Matthias is wonderfully comforting precisely because he appears so ordinary. We know almost nothing about him except that he remained near Christ long enough to be available when history suddenly required another apostle.
Modern society celebrates celebrities, founders, visionaries, and conquerors. Christianity canonizes availability.
Judas had once been chosen too. That is the frightening thing. Even divine calling does not abolish human freedom. One apostle betrays Christ; another quietly steps into the empty place.
And perhaps that is why Matthias matters so deeply.
The Church survives not because every disciple is heroic, but because when one man falls away, another humble soul somewhere has remained faithful in obscurity.
Chesterton delighted in the democracy of God. The King of Heaven does not merely summon the brilliant. He calls ordinary men by extraordinary grace. Matthias reminds me that God’s Kingdom is often advanced by forgotten people whose names only surface when fidelity becomes necessary.
There is also something deeply comic—and therefore deeply Christian—about the Apostles casting lots. The modern bureaucratic world would have demanded résumés, committees, strategic plans, personality profiles, and perhaps a diocesan subcommittee on apostolic replacement procedures.
Instead, the Apostles prayed and trusted.
The Church at her best does not pretend to control the Holy Spirit. She merely tries to remain open enough for Him to act.
And so I look back on my own life—the ministries entered, the ministries lost, the opportunities granted, the doors closed—and I realize that I have spent much of my life both choosing and being chosen.
But grace always moved first.
5. Actio — In Light of Laudato Si’ and Synodality
The Lord, in the culmination of the mystery of the Incarnation, chose to reach our intimate depths through a fragment of matter.
What is needed, then, is a sense of unity, co-responsibility, interdependence and shared hope; a sense of a common origin and destiny, as LS explains (cf. 202). Then it will be possible to join in caring for our common home and contribute together to the common good of the whole human family, while respecting the variety and diversity of the contributions each can make according to their own traditions.
Laudato Si’ reminds me that creation itself is full of hidden vocation. Seeds are chosen for particular soil. Rivers carve paths they did not design. Even small creatures fulfill purposes beyond their understanding.
Synodality asks me to recognize that discernment is communal. The Apostles did not choose Matthias alone. They prayed together, listened together, and entrusted the result together.
Action:
Today I will resist the temptation to see my life merely as self-constructed achievement. I will instead ask:
Where has grace already been quietly choosing for me? Whom has God placed in my path for a reason? And am I remaining faithful enough to be available when called?
Like Matthias, the truly chosen are rarely the self-promoting heroes of history. They are often ordinary souls asked to remain faithful when circumstances suddenly demand courage.
8. Poetic Verse
spent years trying to choose the perfect road.
Then Christ whispered: “You mistake the matter entirely.
The road was chosen for you long before you noticed your feet upon it.”
