Wednesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
“. . . [I believe] in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church . . .” We make this bold affirmation each time we proclaim the Nicene Creed. As you recite the Creed each Sunday during Mass, do you focus on the words? Do you make a conscious intellectual ascent to the truths it contains? Do you exercise your will freely in joining your voice and your heart with that of the Church? Or has it become a rote recitation, something you can rattle off while daydreaming or allowing your mind to become distracted by your preoccupations? I begin this reflection with that challenge because I believe it’s important to enter deeply and intentionally into each moment of the Mass, actively exercising our role in the priesthood of all believers. Today’s Gospel prompted me to focus on the Apostles and what it means that we are an “apostolic Church.” Securely planted on this foundation, may we, like them, be bold witnesses, proclaiming by our lives “The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Have you ever stopped to think about the fact that our Church was established by Christ, entrusted to his Apostles, and has existed ever since? This is no mere human institution! It’s incredible that this Way, this organic movement, this inherently relational faith, has not only survived but thrived for 2,024 years. Despite her brokenness, the Church has withstood every storm of the ages and continues, by the power of God, to be Christ’s instrument of salvation in the world.
The fact that Christ entrusted the Church to his Apostles is key. Stop and think for a moment about the continuity. Christ appointed and invested in his Twelve who, in turn, did the same. Those investees then appointed and invested in others who handed on the faith, raised up new leaders and passed it on. This “apostolic succession” has gone on unbroken for 2,024 years! Every bishop is part of this unbroken chain, link-by-link. This beautiful, glorious, golden chain winds and weaves its way back to Christ himself. It’s precisely this Spirit-led “handing on” of the faith that gives our Church not only its continuity, but also its unshakable foundation. No “earthquake” of sin, no “hurricane” of wickedness or evil can rock or tumble this structure, this Body.
Consider what St Paul said to the Ephesians, “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord” (Eph. 2:19-21, emphasis added). How remarkable! The Church is an unshakable holy temple, and it is also a household! This holy temple in which God dwells with his people is also a family. It’s a structure and also a people – the structure IS the people! This reality is only made possible by the Apostles and their successors.
Let us thank them today and ask their intercession for us as we actively seek to pass on the holy, catholic, and apostolic faith. Today’s Gospel names them, “The names of the Twelve Apostles are these: first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus; Simon the Cananean, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus.” These ordinary men accomplished the extraordinary by the power of God. May we, inspired by their witness, seek to be so Spirit-led that we might also accomplish great things for the Kingdom to the glory of God the Father. Fill us afresh, Holy Spirit! Come, Lord Jesus! Amen!
—Elizabeth Wells