Gary Indianagaryindianagaryindiana

I love your blog! What do you know about St.Matthias and is he the patron saint of anything?

Thank you!

I know what everyone else knows about St. Matthais, which is almost nothing. Based on his statue here, any guesses as to how he left this mortal coil? Here's the 411.

There were Twelve Apostiles, as we all know. Then Judas removed himself.

It just occurred to me as I wrote that, Judas is a very good metaphor for how a person ends up in Hell. The Catholic Church maintains that God doesn't put anyone in Hell, you go there. God always loves you and forgives you, no matter what. But when you aren't sorry for your sins you have removed yourself from God.

And that's just exactly what Judas did. He did a terrible thing and removed himself. He crawled away. He was very sorry. But then he did another terrible thing and killed himself. God didn't do any of that to him. He did it all himself. That's the nature of sin. As a result, there is a good chance that Judas is in Hell. But we actually don't know that for sure. At the last second, when he kicked the stool out from under himself, he might have thought, "Wait! I shouldn't have done that! I take it back! I'm so sorry!"

It could have happened. We know that God would have forgiven him.

But I digress.

Once Judas was out of the picture, there were only eleven apostles. So Peter suggested that they replace Judas. At that point there were 120 disciples hanging around. The eleven apostles narrowed the candidates down to 2, a fellow named Joseph, and St. Matthais.

St. Matthais became the Twelfth Apostle.

And that is all we know about him for sure. Tradition says the he was stoned and then beheaded. So he must have mad someone very angry, with that kind of overkill (pardon the pun). St. Helena found his relics. Maybe. She found some relics that she identified as his.

He is the patron saint of alcoholics! Who knew! Why?

No one knows. I have an educated guess. There is only one quote attributed to St. Matthais. "We must combat our flesh, set no value upon it, and concede to it nothing that can flatter it, but rather increase the growth of our soul by faith and knowledge." Maybe it's on the account of that "we must combat our flesh" part of the quote.

That's my best guess.

He is also the patron saint of Gary, Indiana, Gary Indiana, Gary Indiana...