Wednesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 385

Jesus summoned his Twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness. The names of the Twelve Apostles are these...

The editors of our New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE) tell us this is the only time in the gospels that we hear the expression, "twelve apostles." The word apostle means, "one who is sent," and applies to Jesus  as well as to the disciples he sent to preach and heal. Saint Paul will use the word for himself and other Christian missionaries; only recently, we celebrated the Apostle Barnabas. The word in Saint Luke's Acts and Saint Paul's letters implies greater standing and authority. But, you have to notice, our editors also capitalize the expression in deference to our Catholic tradition, "Twelve Apostles."

Saint Luke tells us the eleven disciples gathered in the Cenacle after Jesus' ascension, and then elected Matthias to replace Judas Iscariot.  Clearly, Jesus created this group and set them apart from other disciples. The number recalled the twelve sons of Israel and their descendants, the twelve tribes. With a college of twelve apostles Jesus would establish a new covenant and a new people of God. When it was disrupted by the death of one member the disciples immediately restored it to twelve. 

However, some time later, when James the Apostle was beheaded, the eleven scattered and the group of twelve disappeared. Perhaps that traditional number was too brittle to meet the needs of a church which was rapidly expanding east toward India, south into Africa, west into Europe and beyond.

People sometimes ask, "What would Jesus do?" In the Cenacle in Jerusalem, before Pentecost, Saint Peter supposed Jesus would appoint a twelfth member. But, by the time of the meeting in 50AD, comprised of "apostles and presbyters," the Church did not try to restore the original institution.

Times change, institutions adapt, the Spirit moves on.

But the Church would not forget the "twelve apostles;" the expression appears one more time in the Bible, in the Book of Revelation. They are not named but they are described as "twelve courses of stone," the foundation of the wall around the New Jerusalem.

Clearly, that institution, as brief as it was, is an important symbol to the church and has often been proclaimed through icons. The Twelve Apostles kept the faith of Jesus and bore witness to his life, death, and resurrection. Our faith today is founded on our confidence that that body did not adjust or adapt the essential message to fit their own ideas or personal needs. Nor did they allow their audiences in many different cities to change the message. They told people the Truth and not what they wanted to hear.

To this day we believe the Church is "One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic." We recite these four marks of the Church every Sunday in the Nicene Creed. A lot can happen in two thousand years; change and disruption are inevitable, but we still speak the Truth to a skeptical world. We believe the Holy Spirit has -- and must -- maintain our apostolic foundation. Without that historical institution and its apostolic succession, our connection to Jesus is broken and we are lost.