A condition for the Kingdom to grow is to have heroes. Christ refuses to be a one-man show. We honour the divine choice expressed in Christ’s desire to let his victory be realized through others, beginning with the Twelve. In the Twelve we find the model of every call of Christ to build his Kingdom, to spread the faith by word and deed. If there is no response to his call, there is no Kingdom. Have I meditated on my call often? Do I see it linked to my family and to my workplace? Have I responded to it?
Many were on the mountain that day. Many were drawn to him and longed to be close to him, but only 12 received the explicit call to be Apostles. The sense of predilection is in every vocation and every mission from God. What we are chosen for in life, no one else can fulfil it. We are called by name, meaning that Christ knows us well when he calls, including all our defects and weaknesses. He did not ask the Twelve for their preferences, look at their résumés. The choice of God, revealed in prayer, is sovereign and omnipotent in action. The Twelve cannot think there has been some mistake or some miscalculation. The voice of God, who neither deceives nor can be deceived, is speaking. Like the apostles we have to respond in freedom to that call. God calls, he willed it, and we say “yes.” This is the only answer an apostle must seek. Anything else slows down the mission and interrupts the dialogue of love and service to the mission.
Fr. Maroun El-Kazzi