MATTHIAS’S, ST., DAY. A festival of the Christian Church, observed on the 24th of February.
St. Matthias was an apostle of Jesus Christ, but not of the number of the twelve, chosen by Christ himself. He obtained this high honour upon a vacancy, made in the college of the apostles by the treason and death of Judas Iscariot. The choice fell on Matthias by lot; his competitor being Joseph called Barsabas, and surnamed Justus.
Matthias was qualified for the apostleship, by having been a constant attendant upon our Saviour all the time of his ministry. He was, probably, one of the seventy disciples. After our Lord’s resurrection, he preached the gospel first in Judea. Afterwards it is probable he travelled eastward, his residence being principally near the irruption of the river Apsarus and the haven Hyssus. The barbarous people treated him with great rudeness and inhumanity; and, after many labours and sufferings in converting great numbers to Christianity, he obtained the crown of martyrdom; but by what kind of death is uncertain.
The observance of this festival among us has been attended with some confusion. The Common Prayer Book of Queen Elizabeth directs, that, in Leap-years, an intercalary or additional day shall be added between the 23rd and 24th days of February. Hence St. Matthias’s day, which, in common years, was observed on the 24th of February, was, in Leap-years, observed on the 25th. But, in the review of our liturgy, it was thought more proper to add a 29th day to February. So that now, there being no variation of the days, this festival must always keep to the 24th day. But, notwithstanding the case is so clear, some almanack-makers continued to follow the old custom, which occasioned the day to be variously observed. Archbishop Sancroft decided the matter by an injunction, Feb. 5, 1683, requiring “all vicars and curates to take notice, that the feast of St. Matthias is to be celebrated, not upon the 25th of February, (as the common almanack-makers boldly and erroneously set it,) but upon the 24th of February for ever, whether it be Leap-year or not, as the calendar in the liturgy, confirmed by act of uniformity, appoints and enjoins.”
MAUNDY THURSDAY. The Thursday before Easter, being the day on which our Lord instituted the holy sacrament of his body and blood. The name of Maundy, Maunday, or Mandate, (Dies Mandati,) is said to have allusion to the mandate or new commandment which, on this day, Christ gave to his disciples, that they should love one another, as he had loved them. It has also been supposed by others, that the name arose from the maunds, or baskets of gifts, which, at this time, it was an ancient custom for Christians to present one to another, in token of that mutual affection which our Lord so tenderly urged, at this period of his sufferings, and as a remembrancer of that “inestimable gift” of Christ, to be our spiritual food in the sacrament of his body and blood. Says a writer of the age of Wickliff, “Christ made his maundy and said, Take, eat,” &c.
On this day it was customary for bishops, sovereigns, and nobles, to wash the feet of the poor, a ceremony still observed in many places abroad. In the Hierurgice Anglicana (p. 282, 283) is given an account of the ceremonial observed by Queen Elizabeth. King James II. is said to have been the last of our sovereigns who performed it. It is still the custom on Maundy Thursday for the Lord Almoner to distribute certain royal donations to the poor in the Royal Chapel at Whitehall. This service consists of appropriate psalms, lessons, anthems, and special prayers. It is performed with great solemnity. For the full particulars see Stephens’s edition of the Common Prayer Book.
MAY, TWENTY-NINTH OF. (See Forms of Prayer.)
MEANS OF GRACE. (See Ordinances and Sacraments.) The sacraments and other ordinances of the Church, through which grace is conveyed to souls prepared by faith and penitence to receive it.
MEDIATOR. (See Jesus, Lord, Christ, Messiah.) A person who intervenes between two parties at variance. Thus our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is the Mediator between God and man.
This appears from 1 Tim. ii. 5, “For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” When we call him a Mediator, we call him so, not only as he is our Redeemer, but also as he is our Intercessor. “For, if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” (1 John ii. 1.)—Archdeacon Welchman. It is to be remembered, however, that by a mediator here the Church means, not barely an intercessor or transactor of business between two parties, in which sense Moses was a mediator between God and the Israelites with respect to the ceremonial law; but such a mediator, intercessor, and transactor, as can plead the merit of his own blood, offered up in man’s stead, to reconcile an offended God to sinful man. In this sense Christ is the only mediator between God and man, being both God and man.—Dr. Bennet.