He called his disciples to himself, and from them he chose Twelve

Col 2,6-15; Ps 144; Lk 6,12-19
10 SEPTEMBER

Who chooses the Twelve is the Father, in the Holy Spirit. In the Holy Spirit, Christ Jesus welcomes, guards, forms and prepares the Twelve so that tomorrow they may live his mission for the redemption and salvation of every man. Not another one, but his. The Twelve must be perennially given to Christ. They must let themselves be perennially given by the Father to Christ, in the Holy Spirit. Christ must give them to the world every day. Thus the twelve are a twofold gift: from the Father to Christ and from Christ to the world in the Holy Spirit. This truth is essence, substance, truth and light of the Gospel. Christ is a gift from the Father. The Twelve are of the Father. Christ is obedient to the Father and the Twelve obedient to Christ.

This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another. “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you (Jn 15,12-19). “I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you gave me is from you, because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them. And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are (Jn 17,6-11).

I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I will lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd. This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again. This command I have received from my Father.” But you do not believe, because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one” (Jn 10,14-18.26-30).

One thing the apostle must never do: give himself, from his will, to the world. He will never produce any fruit of eternal life. He will have to always be this twofold gift: of the Father to Christ and of Christ to the world. Either the disciple is a gift or he is not a disciple.

In those days he departed to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God. When day came, he called his disciples to himself, and from them he chose Twelve, whom he also named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called a Zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. And he came down with them and stood on a stretch of level ground. A great crowd of his disciples and a large number of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and even those who were tormented by unclean spirits were cured. Everyone in the crowd sought to touch him because power came forth from him and healed them all.

All pastoral failures are the fruit of the absence of this double gift. We are not a gift from the Father to Christ. We are not a gift of Christ to the world. Being a gift is the essence of the Lord’s Apostle. But he is only a gift in full obedience to the one who gives.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints arrange that every apostle of Jesus is eternally a gift.