In one episode of The Chosen, a drama series on the life of Jesus through the eyes of those around Him, His followers were gathered around a campfire talking and then arguing with each other while waiting for Jesus. Their conversation became heated when some of the disciples vented out their anger against Matthew because He worked for the Romans as a tax collector. It was not until they heard Jesus approaching and saw Him physically tired from healing people all day that they became silent and felt ashamed with what they were doing.

When we read about Jesus’ disciples, we sometimes forget that the people He gathered together came from different backgrounds with distinct personalities and individual aspirations. Each of them had their own reason for following Jesus. Some may not have even looked eye to eye with each other when they were first called. But it is Jesus who unites them together to become one family. It is Jesus who gives them a mission and purpose. It is Jesus who gives them life.

Like the first group of disciples, the church today is full of people with unique experiences, motives and desires. But it is also Jesus who brought us together to become one family. Like His first disciples, we too are also being sent out to continue the mission that He gave them when, at the end of every celebration of the Holy Eucharist, the priest admonishes us to go and announce the Good News.

By: Richard Anthony Lim

Today’s Gospel

MT 10:1-7

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:
first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew;
James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John;
Philip and Bartholomew,
Thomas and Matthew the tax collector;
James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus;
Simon the Cananean, and Judas Iscariot
who betrayed Jesus.

Jesus sent out these Twelve after instructing them thus,
“Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town.
Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”