Today's reading concerns the choosing of the twelve apostles, called to be Christ's closest fellow workers: to proclaim the Good News and heal the world of disease and the powers of evil. Before this, Jesus spent the whole night in prayer to God and then...
Today's reading concerns the choosing of the twelve apostles, called to be Christ's closest fellow workers: to proclaim the Good News and heal the world of disease and the powers of evil. Before this, Jesus spent the whole night in prayer to God and then chose from among the disciples those “whom He Himself wanted.”
The initiative in calling belongs to God. No one can “receive anything unless it has been given to him from heaven” (Jn 3:27). These words of John the Baptist were spoken about Jesus, who, being obedient to the Father “to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:8), Himself fulfils the divine principle of obedience and founds upon it the first community of disciples, the first fruits of the Church.
God's choosing not only does not abolish human freedom, but presupposes it. A person responds to God's call by a free choice, and that choice is made not only once and for all, but continually, at every moment of life.
Our hearts shudder when we see the name of Judas Iscariot in the list of the apostles. Christ trusts him and entrusts Himself to his freedom: Judas's apostolic dignity is the same as that of the others; he too proclaims the Gospel and has the power to heal diseases and cast out demons. At this moment he is with Christ, and his freedom is given the same opportunity as everyone else's to remain with Him always.
3
3:13 He calleth whom he would - With regard to the eternal states of men, God always acts as just and merciful. But with regard to numberless other things, he seems to us to act as a mere sovereign. Luk 6:12
3:14 Mat 10:2; Luk 6:13; Act 1:13.
3:16 He surnamed them sons of thunder - Both with respect to the warmth and impetuosity of their spirit, their fervent manner of preaching, and the power of their word.
3:20 To eat bread - That is, to take any subsistence.
3:21 His relations - His mother and his brethren, Mar 3:31. But it was some time before they could come near him.
3:22 The scribes and Pharisees, Mat 12:22;who had come down from Jerusalem - Purposely on the devil's errand.And not without success. For the common people now began to drink in the poison, from these learned, good, honourable men!He hath Beelzebub - at command, is in league with him: And by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils - How easily may a man of learning elude the strongest proof of a work of God! How readily can he account for every incident without ever taking God into the question. Mat 12:24; Luk 11:15.
3:28 Mat 12:31; Luk 12:10.
3:30 Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit - Is it not astonishing, that men who have ever read these words, should doubt, what is the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost? Can any words declare more plainly, that it is "the ascribing those miracles to the power of the devil which Christ wrought by the power of the Holy Ghost?"
3:31 Then come his brethren and his mother - Having at length made their way through the crowd, so as to come to the door. His brethren are here named first, as being first and most earnest in the design of taking him: for neither did these of his brethren believe on him. They sent to him, calling him - They sent one into the house, who called him aloud, by name. Mat 12:46; Luk 8:19.
3:34 Looking round on them who sat about him - With the utmost sweetness; He said, Behold my mother and my brethren - In this preference of his true disciples even to the Virgin Mary, considered merely as his mother after the flesh, he not only shows his high and tender affection for them, but seems designedly to guard against those excessive and idolatrous honours, which he foresaw would in after ages be paid to her.