Today's Readings
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.
Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 19:2–3, 4–5
The heavens are telling the glory of God;
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. 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; yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun,
Gospel
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.
Daily Reflection
By Bishop Robert Barron
Friends, today’s Gospel recounts Jesus selecting and appointing the apostles. Bible scholar and theologian N. T. Wright has explained why Jesus commissioned twelve disciples as apostles.
Wright tells us that when a first-century Jew spoke of the arrival of God’s kingdom, he was taken to mean something very specific. He was announcing that the temple was going to be restored, that the proper worship of Yahweh would obtain, that the enemies of Israel would be dealt with, and that, above all, the tribes of the Lord—and through them, the tribes of the world—would be gathered.
Recall the great vision from the second chapter of Isaiah: “The mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest mountain. . . . All nations shall stream toward it.” This is why Jesus chose twelve disciples, evocative of the twelve tribes. They would be the prototype and the catalyst for the gathering of Israel and hence the gathering of everyone. They would be the fundamental community and sign of unity.
Bishop Robert Barron
Founder, Word on Fire
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.