February 24th - Feast of St. Matthias the Apostle

St. Matthias or Matthew was one of the seventy disciples of Jesus.  He replaced Judas Iscariot as an apostle and eventually wrote the New Testament book of Matthew.  Passed that there a couple of contradictory stories about what became of him.  

The first is that he preached the Gospel in Judea and then in Ethiopia where he was crucified.  Another states that while he preached in Ethiopia he died at Sebatopolis and was buried there.  A third tradition holds that Matthew was stoned by Jews in Jerusalem then beheaded.  The Greeks maintain that Matthew ministered in Cappadocia and along the Caspian sea staying in Issus.

Regardless of what happened to him, February 24th became a feast day in his honor in the 11th century.  In 1969 the Catholic Church moved the feast day to May 14th so as not to have a feast in mid-Lent.