Friday in the Second Week of Ordinary Time, January 20, 2023

Mark 3, 13-19

Jesus went up the mountain and summoned those whom he wanted and they came to him. He appointed Twelve, whom he also named Apostles, that they might be with him and he might send them forth to preach and to have authority to drive out demons: He appointed the Twelve: Simon, whom he named Peter; James, son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James, whom he named Boanerges, that is, sons of thunder; Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus; Thaddeus, Simon the Cananean, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him.

The March for Life is being held today in Washington D.C. for the first time since the heinous Roe v. Wade decision was reversed by the Supreme Court.  For so many years we marched without any sign that this would happen.  This shows us the necessity of perseverance, and warns us to keep up the prayers and fasting for the conversion of those who hold that the abortion of children in the womb should be legal. 

“Jesus went up the mountain and summoned those whom he wanted and they came to him.”  For perhaps over a year since his Baptism by John, the Lord had preached and healed, mainly in Galilee.  Crowds from all over had come to him to listen and to be healed, and there were those who followed him with some constancy.  The Lord had called these personally.  The Gospels preserve for us details of how seven of these men were called.  Now, in this excerpt from the Gospel of St. Mark, he further selects twelve who would be known at the Apostles, although during the Lord’s lifetime they were known as “the twelve”.  He made interesting choices.  In fact, he seems to have gone out of his way to pick the twelve men who would be least useful to a religious movement, if that was what he was doing.  Rather than pick men from among the scribes and rabbis of the land, or from among the wealthy and the well-connected, he selected men who had almost nothing to offer him: fishermen, tax collectors, young men without much experience.  Perhaps of these these only Matthew was literate.  While none of the twelve could be described as poor, none could offer him real financial backing, if he needed it.  

We ought to wonder why he did this, and why choose Judas Iscariot at all?  But the Lord uses ordinary bricks to build his magnificent Temple, and this displays his glory and power.  We might think here of Elijah and the prophets of Baal.  The four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal danced and pranced and pierced themselves and howled for hours, and their sacrifice went unaccepted.  Elijah had the wood for his sacrifice soaked in water and he said a simple prayer.  The fire that came down from heaven upon the sacrifice burned up the wood on the altar, the sacrifice itself, and boiled away the water.  The Apostles were that wood.  You and I are that wood.  May the fire of the Holy Spirit blaze within us.