Saturday 28 October 2023 Saints Simon and Jude, Apostles – Feast
Ephesians 2:19-22
You are no longer aliens or foreign visitors: you are citizens like all the saints, and part of God’s household. You are part of a building that has the apostles and prophets for its foundations, and Christ Jesus himself for its main cornerstone. As every structure is aligned on him, all grow into one holy temple in the Lord; and you too, in him, are being built into a house where God lives, in the Spirit.
Psalm 18 Their message goes out through all the earth.
Luke 6:12-19
Jesus went out into the hills to pray; and he spent the whole night in prayer to God. When day came he summoned his disciples and picked out twelve of them; he called them ‘apostles’: Simon whom he called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot who became a traitor.
He then came down with them and stopped at a piece of level ground where there was a large gathering of his disciples with a great crowd of people from all parts of Judaea and from Jerusalem and from the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon who had come to hear him and to be cured of their diseases. People tormented by unclean spirits were also cured, and everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him because power came out of him that cured them all.
Reflection
I think today’s readings are about foundations.
Yesterday we had the pleasure to be visited by the bishop of Quiche in Guatemala. He is attending the Synod, which finishes its formal sessions today. He was sharing on many different aspects of the Synod and speaking of very positive and affirming experience he has had sitting with delegates at round tables, listening to them, listening to the Spirit together. He touched on the methodology that had enabled such a rich exchange across the tables, and this deep listening for the Spirit of God as a communal activity has enabled much constructive conversation. This methodology is a good foundation.
In the readings today it is obvious that foundations that are the prophets and apostles and nothing without Christ Jesus the cornerstone that holds it altogether.
Today we celebrate leadership and give thanks for those called to be foundations in this time. We remember especially people like Pope Francis. We all trust in Jesus the cornerstone of the building. Francis’s work is to provide an authentic base for the mission that we build communally. Jesus, the cornerstone, holds it all together. He binds the building to himself. He is the methodology that enables the good work of God to be known and manifested.
We celebrate today the firm foundations we have, and give thanks for the cornerstone that support us all.