Daily Reading

First Reading

Ephesians 2:19-22

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

Psalm

Psalm 19:2-3, 4-5

Day to day pours forth speech,
    and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
    their voice is not heard;
Day to day pours forth speech,
    and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
    their voice is not heard;

Gospel Reading

Luke 6:12-16

Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James, and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Simon, who was called the Zealot, and Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

Reflection

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus chooses the Twelve, whom he names apostles.

In the apse of the church of San Clemente in Rome, there is a gorgeous twelfth-century mosaic that gives visual expression to the call of the Twelve. At the center of the composition is the crucified Jesus. Surrounding the cross are twelve doves, symbolizing the apostles, who would fly around the world with the message of salvation.

No biblical figure is ever given an experience of God without receiving, at the same time, a commission. Moses spies the burning bush, hears the sacred name of Yahweh, and is then told to go back to Egypt to liberate his people; Isaiah enjoys an encounter with God amidst the splendor of the temple liturgy and is then sent to preach; Saul is overwhelmed by the luminosity of the risen Jesus and is subsequently called to apostleship.

The apostles are not simply a distant memory; rather, they live on through what we call the apostolic succession. Therefore, the apostolicity of the Church is our guarantee that we are, despite many developments and changes across the centuries, still preserving the faith that was first kindled in that company of Jesus’s friends.