Tuesday in the 23rd Week of Ordinary Time, September 10, 2024

Luke 6, 12-19

Jesus 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.

The individual Apostles are spoken of so infrequently in the Gospels that we ought to wonder that the Evangelists thought it worthwhile to provide lists of them at all.  Not all of them do, for that matter: St. John gives us the names of only seven, and does not provide us with a list.  The lists of the Apostles in the three Gospels that provide them are remarkably similar, and allow us to determine that St. Jude was also called “Thaddeus”, and St. Bartholomew had a first name of “Nathanael”.  It would seem from the stories of the calls of various Apostles that the lists mainly put the Apostles in the order in which they were called, with the exception of St. Peter.  He heads the lists though, traditionally, St. Andrew, his brother, is known as “the first-called”.  Judas Iscariot is always listed last.  This could be because he was called last or because he was the traitor.  The fact that three Evangelists listed the Apostles despite not telling much about them  otherwise tells us of the importance the new Christians attached to those who preached to them and converted them.  We see this in 1 Corinthians 3, 4, where some new Christians have taken this a bit too far.  But knowing that Thomas, say, has baptized me and that he was ranked with the great Peter and John, helped an early Christian to feel connected to the ones specifically called by the Lord to follow him, who had seen and heard the Son of God preach and perform miracles, and who were witnesses of the Risen Christ.  And this feeling of connectedness was very necessary for the Gentile Christians especially, who struggled for their identity in their, initially, little communities.

“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.”  St. Luke, after telling of the calling of the Apostles, prepares to render a long account of a sermon that the Lord Jesus delivered, sometimes called “The Sermon on the Plain” to distinguish it from The Sermon on the Mount, which it resembles in many ways.  First, Jesus heals the people who have come from all directions to be with him.  Then he preaches.  The miracles of healing and the exorcisms get the attention of the people and ready them to not only hear but believe in what he is about to preach.  It is very moving to hear of these healings, and of Luke’s comment that “everyone in the crowd sought to touch him because power came forth from him and healed them all.”  Luke says, “Power came forth from him”.  The Greek word translated here as “power” is the basis for our word “dynamic”.  This was a living power that went forth and caused weakened and sickened bodies to heal.  There is nothing inert about this power.