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 continued 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.

*********************************************************************************************
Commentary:

12-13. The evangelist writes with a certain formality when describing
this important occasion on which Jesus chooses the Twelve, constitu-
ting them as the apostolic college: “The Lord Jesus, having prayed at
length to the Father, called to Himself those whom He willed and ap-
pointed twelve to be with Him, whom He might send to preach the King-
dom 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 permanent assem-
bly, 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. Reve-
lation 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, “Lu-
men Gentium”, 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 preparing His Apostles to be its pillars (cf.
Galatians 2:9). As His Passion approaches, He will pray to the Father
for Simon Peter, the head of the Church, and solemnly 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 important 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....” ([Blessed] 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. “Summa Theologiae”, III, q.
21, a. 1). Reflecting on Jesus at prayer, St. Ambrose comments: “The
Lord prays not to ask things for Himself, but to intercede on my behalf;
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 Evangelii sec. Lucam, in loc.”).

14-16. Jesus chose for Apostles very ordinary people, most of them poor
and uneducated; 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, veritable 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.

*********************************************************************************************
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.

Mass Readings

First reading	Colossians 2:6 - 15 ©
You must live your whole life according to the Christ you have received – Jesus the Lord; you must be rooted in him and built on him and held firm by the faith you have been taught, and full of thanksgiving. Make sure that no one traps you and deprives you of your freedom by some second-hand, empty, rational philosophy based on the principles of this world instead of on Christ. In his body lives the fullness of divinity, and in him you too find your own fulfilment, in the one who is the head of every Sovereignty and Power. In him you have been circumcised, with a circumcision not performed by human hand, but by the complete stripping of your body of flesh. This is circumcision according to Christ. You have been buried with him, when you were baptised; and by baptism, too, you have been raised up with him through your belief in the power of God who raised him from the dead. You were dead, because you were sinners and had not been circumcised: he has brought you to life with him, he has forgiven us all our sins. He has overridden the Law, and cancelled every record of the debt that we had to pay; he has done away with it by nailing it to the cross; and so he got rid of the Sovereignties and the Powers, and paraded them in public, behind him in his triumphal procession.

First reading

You must live your whole life according to the Christ you have received – Jesus the Lord; you must be rooted in him and built on him and held firm by the faith you have been taught, and full of thanksgiving.
Make sure that no one traps you and deprives you of your freedom by some second-hand, empty, rational philosophy based on the principles of this world instead of on Christ.
In his body lives the fullness of divinity, and in him you too find your own fulfilment, in the one who is the head of every Sovereignty and Power.
In him you have been circumcised, with a circumcision not performed by human hand, but by the complete stripping of your body of flesh. This is circumcision according to Christ. You have been buried with him, when you were baptised; and by baptism, too, you have been raised up with him through your belief in the power of God who raised him from the dead. You were dead, because you were sinners and had not been circumcised: he has brought you to life with him, he has forgiven us all our sins.
He has overridden the Law, and cancelled every record of the debt that we had to pay; he has done away with it by nailing it to the cross; and so he got rid of the Sovereignties and the Powers, and paraded them in public, behind him in his triumphal procession.

Psalm or canticle: Psalm 144

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.

Gospel

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.