From: Luke 6:12-19

The Calling of the Apostles

[12] In these days He (Jesus) went out into the hills to pray; and all night He con-
tinued in prayer to God. [13] And when it was day, He called His disciples, and
chose from them twelve, whom He named Apostles: [14] Simon, whom He named
Peter, and Andrew, his brother, and James and John, and Philip and Bartholomew,
[15] and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who
was called the Zealot, [16] and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who
became a traitor.

The Sermon on the Mount

[17] And He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd
of His disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and
the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear Him and to be healed of their
diseases; [18] and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. [19]
And all the crowd sought to touch Him, for power came forth from Him and healed
them all.

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Commentary:

12-13. The evangelist writes with a certain formality when describing this impor-
tant occasion on which Jesus chooses the Twelve, constituting them as the apo-
stolic college: “The Lord Jesus, having prayed at length to the Father, called to
Himself those whom He willed and appointed twelve to be with Him, whom He
might send to preach the Kingdom of God (cf. Mark 2:13-19; Matthew 10:1-42).
These Apostles (cf. Luke 6:13) He constituted in the form of a college or perma-
nent assembly, at the head of which He placed Peter, chosen from among them
(cf. John 21:15-17). He sent them first of all to the children of Israel and then to
all peoples (cf. Romans 1:16), so that, sharing in His power, they might make all
peoples His disciples and sanctify and govern them (cf. Matthew 28: 16-20; and
par.) and thus spread the Church and, administering it under the guidance of the
Lord, shepherd it all days until the end of the world (cf. Matthew 28:20). They
were fully confirmed in this mission on the day of Pentecost (cf. Act 2:1-26) [...].
Through their preaching the Gospel everywhere (cf. Mark 16:20), and through its
being welcomed and received under the influence of the Holy Spirit by those
who hear it, the Apostles gather together the universal Church, which the Lord
founded upon the Apostles and built upon Blessed Peter their leader, the chief
cornerstone being Christ Jesus Himself (cf. Revelation 21:14; Matthew 16:18;
Ephesians 2:20). That divine mission, which was committed by Christ to the
Apostles, is destined to last until the end of the world (cf. Matthew 28:20), since
the Gospel, which they were charged to hand on, is, for the Church, the principle
of all its life for all time. For that very reason the Apostles were careful to appoint
successors in this hierarchically constituted society” (Vatican II, “Lumen Gen-
tium”, 19-20).

Before establishing the apostolic college, Jesus spent the whole night in prayer.
He often made special prayer for His Church (Luke 9:18; John 17:1ff), thereby pre-
paring His Apostles to be its pillars (cf. Galatians 2:9). As His Passion approa-
ches, He will pray to the Father for Simon Peter, the head of the Church, and so-
lemnly tell Peter that He has done so: “But I have prayed for you that your faith
may not fail” (Luke 22:32). Following Christ’s example, the Church stipulates that
on many occasions liturgical prayer should be offered for the pastors of the
Church (the Pope, the bishops in general, and priests) asking God to give them
grace to fulfill their ministry faithfully.

Christ is continually teaching us that we need to pray always (Luke 18:1). Here
He shows us by His example that we should pray with special intensity at impor-
tant moments in our lives. “’Pernoctans in oratione Dei. He spent the whole night
in prayer to God.’ So St. Luke tells of our Lord. And you? How often have you
persevered like that? Well, then....” (St. J. Escriva, “The Way”, 104).

On the need for prayer and the qualities our prayer should have, see the notes
on Matthew 6:5-6; 7:7-11; 14:22-23; Mark 1:35; Luke 5:16; 11:1-4; 22:41-42.

12. Since Jesus is God, why does He pray? There were two wills in Christ, one
divine and one human (cf. “St. Pius X Catechism”, 91), and although by virtue of
His divine will He was omnipotent, His human will was not omnipotent. When we
pray, what we do is make our will known to God; therefore Christ, who is like us
in all things but sin (Hebrews 4:15), also had to pray in a human way (cf. “Sum-
ma Theologiae”, III, q. 21, a. 1). Reflecting on Jesus at prayer, St. Ambrose com-
ments: “The Lord prays not to ask things for Himself, but to intercede on my be-
half; for although the Father has put everything into the hands of the Son, still
the Son, in order to behave in accordance with His condition as man, considers
it appropriate to implore the Father for our sake, for He is our Advocate [...]. A
Master of obedience, by His example He instructs us concerning the precepts
of virtue: ‘We have an advocate with the Father’ (1 John 2:1)” (”Expositio Evan-
gelii sec. Lucam, in loc.”).

14-16. Jesus chose for Apostles very ordinary people, most of them poor and un-
educated; apparently only Matthew and the brothers James and John had social
positions of any consequence. But all of them gave up whatever they had, little or
much as it was, and all of them, bar Judas, put their faith in the Lord, overcame
their shortcomings and eventually proved faithful to grace and became saints, ve-
ritable pillars of the Church. We should not feel uneasy when we realize that we
too are low in human qualities; what matters is being faithful to the grace God
gives us.

19. God became man to save us. The divine person of the Word acts through
the human nature which He took on. The cures and casting out of devils which
He performed during His life on earth are also proof that Christ actually brings
redemption and not just hope of redemption. The crowds of people from Judea
and other parts of Israel who flock to Him, seeking even to touch Him, anticipate,
in a way, Christians’ devotion to the holy Humanity of Christ.

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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

Readings at Mass

First reading	1 Corinthians 6:1-11 ©

How dare one of your members take up a complaint against another in the law courts of the unjust instead of before the saints? As you know, it is the saints who are to ‘judge the world’; and if the world is to be judged by you, how can you be unfit to judge trifling cases? Since we are also to judge angels, it follows that we can judge matters of everyday life; but when you have had cases of that kind, the people you appointed to try them were not even respected in the Church. You should be ashamed: is there really not one reliable man among you to settle differences between brothers and so one brother brings a court case against another in front of unbelievers? It is bad enough for you to have lawsuits at all against one another: oughtn’t you to let yourselves be wronged, and let yourselves be cheated? But you are doing the wronging and the cheating, and to your own brothers.

You know perfectly well that people who do wrong will not inherit the kingdom of God: people of immoral lives, idolaters, adulterers, catamites, sodomites, thieves, usurers, drunkards, slanderers and swindlers will never inherit the kingdom of God. These are the sort of people some of you were once, but now you have been washed clean, and sanctified, and justified through the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and through the Spirit of our God.

Psalm	Psalm 149:1-6,9 ©

The Lord takes delight in his people.

Alleluia!

Sing a new song to the Lord,

his praise in the assembly of the faithful.

Let Israel rejoice in its Maker,

let Zion’s sons exult in their king.

The Lord takes delight in his people.

Alleluia!

Let them praise his name with dancing

and make music with timbrel and harp.

For the Lord takes delight in his people.

He crowns the poor with salvation.

The Lord takes delight in his people.

Alleluia!

Let the faithful rejoice in their glory,

shout for joy and take their rest.

Let the praise of God be on their lips:

this honour is for all his faithful.

The Lord takes delight in his people.

Alleluia!

Gospel Acclamation	Ph2:15-16

Alleluia, alleluia!

You will shine in the world like bright stars

because you are offering it the word of life.

Alleluia!

Or	cf.Jn15:16

Alleluia, alleluia!

I chose you from the world

to go out and bear fruit,

fruit that will last,

says the Lord.

Alleluia!

Gospel	Luke 6:12-19 ©

Jesus went out into the hills to pray; and he spent the whole night in prayer to God. When day came he summoned his disciples and picked out twelve of them; he called them ‘apostles’: Simon whom he called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot who became a traitor.

He then came down with them and stopped at a piece of level ground where there was a large gathering of his disciples with a great crowd of people from all parts of Judaea and from Jerusalem and from the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon who had come to hear him and to be cured of their diseases. People tormented by unclean spirits were also cured, and everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him because power came out of him that cured them all.