In today's gospel reading, we witness Jesus' moment of choosing from the group of disciples who followed him a smaller group he would call the Apostles. He also called them The Twelve. A little quiz is in order: who are the twelve original apostles? (1) Peter, (2) his brother, __________, (3) John, (4) James (5) __________ , (6) Matthew, (7) _____________ (8) Judas Iscariot, (9) __________. son of Alphaeus, (10) ________, (11) Simon, (12) _________, son of James.
These twelve men, save one, would be at jesus' side through the ups and downs of his ministry. It is important that we know who these followers are. In the end, they were martyred for their loyalty, their fidelity to their friend. Furthermore, these men were instrumental in helping establish our Church. These were people who, like many after themselves and even to the present time, struggled with the challenge of believing. We need to know the names of these heroic teachers because in knowing their names, we are able to related to their lives and what sacrifices they made in building our Church.
Today's response to words from Psalm 149 is fitting as we honor the original band of apostles" "The Lord takes delight in his people." It is a sentence we can use to speak about those men and women who are Jesus' apostles in our world today. Surely, the blogger believes, the challenge for apostles today does exceed the expectations placed before The Twelve -- except most modern apostles feel confident that physical martyrdom does not lie ahead. Indeed the Lord takes delight in us every day, every hour, when we are committed to his ministry, wen we endeavor to be an apostle to others.
The quiz answers: (2) Andrew, (5) Philip, (7) Bartholomew, (9) James, (10) Thomas and (12) Judas. Obviously 5,7,10 an be in any order!
