Saints Simon and Jude, Apostles

Peter H. Davids

Ordinary Time Homilies • Sermon • Submitted 7 months ago • Presented 7 months ago

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We are not ultimately individuals even in relation to God, but citizens of a kingdom, stones in a Temple, and parts of a body. The foundation is the Apostles and prophets, even those we know little or nothing about. The apex or capstone or head is Jesus who both holds us together and is what we are growing into, collectively. That is where our security rests.

Notes

Transcript

Title

We are in community

Outline

We live with the scourge of individualism

I am my own person and I decide who I am and what I will be

My body belongs to me and I decide what to do with it

My life is mine and I am the captain of that ship

How strange that sounds in the light of Scripture in which we are always in community and in the New Testament we are either the body of Christ or the stones of the Temple that is Christ, or has him as the capstone.

So Jesus does not stay alone, but forms a community

He had the more amorphous group of disciples and also family, such as his mother, around him, but he takes a further step to create structure.

In this structure there are Twelve who are official representatives, sent with plenipotentiary authority, or Apostles. Some we know more about, such as Simon, nicknamed Peter or Rock, and some we know a little about, such as Andrew, Peter’s brother, but most we only know from later traditions and even these are often thin. Yet each had his place in this foundational structure that was his body, even Judas, who betrayed him.

We are brought into this household, built on this foundation

That is, before our conversion we were strangers or sojourners among this community. But through conversion we have been made citizens of a kingdom that includes all holy ones down the ages, or members of God’s own household, the foundation of which is the Apostles and prophets, OT and NT believers who where chosen as nerves to connect us to the head, as transmitters of the family lifestyle. And when we think of it as household one thinks of house or temple and the Apostles and prophets are the foundation with Jesus Christ as the capstone holding it all together so that it is truly a Temple. But, more than this, it is the community-Temple that is the dwelling place of God through the Spirit.

Now this has great implications for us

The most superficial is that the NT is not interested in the Jerusalem in Israel or a new Temple on the Temple Mount, but in the Jerusalem above and the Temple which is Jesus and includes his body. This gives the Pope quite a struggle in dealing with the country of Israel.

More important, while there is an individual aspect of relationship to God, which can devolve into individualism, the more fundamental relationship is that we have a family, a household, a collective body in which Christ is the capstone and head and the Apostles and prophets, including Simon and Jude, are the foundation. Despite being distant in time, they are as foundationally present as an honored great grandfather who laid the ideological and other bases for a family.

Our families of origins may come and go, our country of origin may rise and fall, our Order, even, may fade away, but the household it expresses, the Temple it embodies, the body of which it is a part stands firm: the Apostles and prophets are always there, we are always connected to them, founded on them and built up towards Jesus.

And that is where our security and our belongingness is ultimately secured.

Readings

Catholic Daily Readings 10-28-2023: Saints Simon and Jude, Apostles

FIRST READING

Ephesians 2:19–22

19 So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, 20 built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. 21 Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; 22 in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

Catholic Daily Readings 10-28-2023: Saints Simon and Jude, Apostles

RESPONSE

Psalm 19:5a

5 A report goes forth through all the earth,

their messages, to the ends of the world.

He has pitched in them a tent for the sun;

PSALM

Psalm 19:2–5

2 The heavens declare the glory of God;

the firmament proclaims the works of his hands.

3 Day unto day pours forth speech;

night unto night whispers knowledge.

4 There is no speech, no words;

their voice is not heard;

5 A report goes forth through all the earth,

their messages, to the ends of the world.

He has pitched in them a tent for the sun;

Catholic Daily Readings 10-28-2023: Saints Simon and Jude, Apostles

GOSPEL ACCLAMATION

Text

GOSPEL

Luke 6:12–16

12 In those days he departed to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God. 13 When day came, he called his disciples to himself, and from them he chose Twelve, whom he also named apostles: 14 Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, 15 Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called a Zealot, 16 and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

Notes

Catholic Daily Readings 10-28-2023: Saints Simon and Jude, Apostles

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2023 | FEAST

SAINTS SIMON AND JUDE, APOSTLES

YEARS 1 & 2 | ROMAN MISSAL | LECTIONARY

First Reading Ephesians 2:19–22

Response Psalm 19:5a

Psalm Psalm 19:2–5

Gospel Acclamation Text

Gospel Luke 6:12–16

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