30b. JESUS CHOSES HIS DISCIPLES

Teks : Mark 3:13-19

By this time, Jesus had come to a very important moment in his life. After preaching, healing and doing good to others throughout Galilee, we can say that, he had made a very considerable impact on the public mind. Now he had to choose certain men. Why and what for? He chose them in order to imprint his message in their hearts and lives. He chose them to send them out from his presence in order to broaden his message world wide. This step is very important, even crucial, in anticipation to times to come when Jesus is passed away.

For me, it is interesting to notice that Christianity began with a group. By the fact itself, that Jesus himself chose twelve men almost right from the beginning of his mission, tells us that the Christian faith is something which had to be discovered and lived out in a fellowship. The whole essence of Judaism which signed by the way of the Pharisees was that it separated men from their fellows (the very name Pharisee means the separated one). Jesus take exactly an opposite way from that of the Pharisees. In Jesus way, the whole essence of Christianity represent a new insight for man’s live. That is the Christianity bound men to their fellows and presents them with the task of living with and for each other. That’s why, we who find ourselves as captives of Christ love, always be put together in a community, in a Church, meeting and living with other people whom we never knew and met before; all of us have come from different places and cultural background and many other differences. That’s the beauty of this special offer to be a Chrsitian. Thank God for his great grace for us!

Usually, if someone call us, he must has something for us to do. Jesus called his twelve disciples to himself for two purposes. First, he called them to be with him. Second, he called them to send them out. He called them to be his steady and consistent companions. Others might come and go, be there one day and away the next, be fluctuating and spasmodic in their attachment to him. But these twelve were to live together with him all the time and to live the life of Jesus himself. More than that, Jesus wanted them to be his representatives, to tell others about him. My brothers and sisters, if we want to live our faith faithfully, it is important for us to find out which kind of Jesus magnetic personality has attracted us from the beginning until now to be a Christian. And how far we find ourselves ready to be His messangers?

Today we commemorate the day of Saint Agnes. She was a true disciple of Jesus who felt and be trapped with the magnetic beauty of Jesus, the Lord. Saint Agnes, pray for us so that we can develop ourselves, day after day, to be true disciples of Jesus Christ.

Copyright @ Ledalero, January 21^st 2011, by Antonio Camnahas, SVD