Today the Church celebrates the liturgical feast of Saint Bartholomew, one of the twelve apostles chosen by Jesus, traditionally identified with Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, whom the Gospel of John speaks to us about. Led to Christ by his friend Philip, Nathanael was the protagonist of one of the most intense dialogues in the Gospel, sealed by the Master’s famous praise: «Here is a true Israelite in whom there is no deceit». That transparency of soul and that absence of duplicity remained the hallmark of his journey as a disciple, which culminated in the extreme testimony of blood. According to ancient Eastern historical traditions, Bartholomew spent his life proclaiming the Gospel in distant lands such as India and Armenia. It was precisely in Armenia that he faced an atrocious martyrdom, being flayed alive, a torture that iconography has immortalized, handing it down to universal memory. His figure remains today a luminous beacon for every believer, a call to evangelical consistency, to the sincere search for truth, and to the radical nature of the gift of self for the love of Christ.
