Brothers and sisters:
You are no longer strangers and sojourners,
but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones
and members of the household of God, 
built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets,
with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. Ephesians 2

Jesus went up to the mountain to pray,
and he spent the night in prayer to God.
When day came, he called his disciples to himself,
and from them he chose Twelve, whom he also named Apostles. Luke 6

The Greek word, apóstolos means "one who is sent." An apostle is an emissary, a messenger, a representative. Celebrating this two relatively unknown Apostles give us an opportunity to reflect on our being apostles - on our being sent, sent to be an emissary for Jesus.

This is an important reflection on many levels. It's clear that Jesus didn't hire a recruiting firm to help him choose his Twelve Apostles. He must have seen some goodness in them and he must have trusted that, with his grace, and ultimately with the power of the Holy Spirit, they would be his representatives in a powerful way.

We, too, are sent by our Lord. Our Baptism immersed us in the pattern of his death and resurrection, making us one with him and his mission. It is good for us to let this feast become an opportunity for our getting in touch with our being send. So often it is easy to think or feel that I'm an independent being, operating on my own, for my own desires and purposes. I might have a sense that I have a vocation and a career that basically defines me. So it is a graced experience to recall and to let myself be renewed in a sense - an invigorating and empowering sense - that I'm called and sent by Jesus to join him in his mission in this world.

To do this seems to require that we 1) recall what the mission of Jesus in this world is all about; and 2) that we reflect on how we represent him in that mission in our everyday lives.

We recall that Jesus is called - anointed - "to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free." (Luke 4:18) We see in story after story that he is on a mission of healing and reconciliation, a mission to free people with the good news of our salvation. We see him resisting the "religious" people of his day who are severe, unbending, excluding, lacking in compassion and mercy. He completely re-defines what "blessedness" looks like. He goes beyond all the religious traditions of his time to touch the untouchable, to eat and drink with sinners, to heal the unseeing, those who can't hear, and to give freedom to those paralyzed. Ultimately, in self-sacrificing love, he is literally broken and poured out to free us from the power of sin and death.

Jesus sends us to do the same. We are to do it in our lives, in our world. We can continually examine how we can be more like him, in all the relationships of our lives. Forgoing severity and judgment, we can move in the direction of mercy and inclusion and reconciliation. We can ask, Who needs the healing power of our loving attention? We can notice and have feelings for those on the margins, those who suffer, those handicapped by systemic social injustice. We can surrender our busy indifference to those in need around us, and grow in compassion that allows us to be better advocates for the voiceless. It will change the way we see people, the way we listen to those who are different or even think differently, the way we listen to the news, the way we vote and participate in representative democracies. And, on a community level, together we will be those called together to be church, in the name of Jesus. We will live out the prayer we make at the Eucharist: "Remember, Lord, your church, spread throughout the world, and bring her to the fullness of charity." (Eucharistic Prayer II)

Countless apostles before us have embraced this call and sending. The graces for it are already alive in each of our hearts. May today's memory of Simon and Jude, stir those graces and renew them, in us and among us, for God's greater glory and the service of others.