Navarre Bible Commentary:Friday, Second Week in Ordinary Time

Exhortation of the Apostles by James Tissot

Mark 3:13–19

And he went up on the mountain, and called to him those whom he desired; and they came to him. And he appointed twelve, to be with him, and to be sent out to preach and have authority to cast out demons: Simon whom he surnamed Peter; James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, whom he surnamed Bo-anerges, that is, sons of thunder; Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

Then he went home;       

Catholic Exegesis:

The Second Vatican Council teaches  that if we are to derive the true meaning from the sacred texts,  attention must be devoted “not only to their content but to the unity of the whole of Scripture, the living tradition of the entire Church, and the analogy of faith. […] Everything to do with the interpretation of Scripture is ultimately subject to the judgment of the Church, which exercises the divinely conferred communion and ministry of watching over and interpreting the Word of God” (Dei Verbum, 12).

St. John Paul II, when he promulgated the Catechism of the Catholic Church,  explained that the Catechism "is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium."  He went on to "declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion" (Fidei Depositum).

Cited in the Catechism:

Passages from this Gospel reading are cited in the Catechism, paragraphs 551, 765, 787, 858, 1577 and 1673.

Commentary:

3:13. “He called to him those whom he desired”: God wants to show us that calling, vocation, is an initiative of God. This is particularly true in the case of the apostles, which is why Jesus could tell them, later on, that “you did not choose me, but I chose you” (Jn 15:16). Those who will have power and authority in the Church will not obtain this because first they offer their services and then Jesus accepts their offering: on the contrary, “not through their own initiative and preparation, but rather by virtue of divine grace, would they be called to the apostolate” (St Bede, In Marci Evangelium expositio, in loc.).

Jesus chooses twelve apostles

3:14–19. The Twelve chosen by Jesus (cf. 3:14) receive a specific vocation to be “people sent out”, which is what the word “apostles” means. Jesus chooses them for a mission which he will give them later (6:6–13) and to enable them to perform this mission he gives them part of his power. The fact that he chooses twelve is very significant. This is the same number as the twelve patriarchs of Israel, and the apostles represent the new people of God, the Church founded by Christ. Jesus sought in this way to emphasize the continuity that exists between the Old and New Testaments. The Twelve are the pillars on which Christ builds his Church (cf. Gal 2:9); their mission to make disciples of the Lord (to teach) all nations, sanctifying and governing the believers (Mt 28:16–20; Mk 16:15; Lk 24:45–48; Jn 20:21–23).

The very designation of them as the Twelve shows that they form a well-defined and complete group; therefore, after Judas’ death Matthias is elected to take his place (Acts 1:15–26).

3:14. The Second Vatican Council sees in this text the establishment of the College of apostles: “The Lord Jesus, having prayed at length to the Father, called to himself those whom he willed and appointed twelve to be with him, whom he might send to preach the Kingdom of God (cf. Mk 3:13–19; Mt 10:1–42). These apostles (cf. Lk 6:13) he constituted in the form of a college or permanent assembly, at the head of which he placed Peter, chosen from amongst them” (cf. Jn 21:15–17). “That divine mission, which was committed by Christ to the apostles, is destined to last until the end of the world (cf. Mt 28:20), since the Gospel, which they were charged to hand on, is, for the Church, the principle of all its life for all time. For that very reason the apostles were careful to appoint successors in this hierarchically constituted society” (Lumen gentium, 19–20). Therefore, the Pope and the bishops, who succeed the College of the Twelve, are also called by our Lord to be always with Jesus and to preach the Gospel, aided by priests. Life in union with Christ and apostolic zeal must be very closely linked together; in other words, effectiveness in apostolate always depends on union with our Lord, on continuous prayer and on sacramental life: “Apostolic zeal is a divine craziness I want you to have. Its symptoms are: hunger to know the Master; constant concern for souls; perseverance that nothing can shake” (St Josemaría Escrivá, The Way, 934).

3:16. At this point, before the word “Simon”, the sentence “He formed the group of the twelve” occurs in many manuscripts (it is similar to “he appointed twelve” in v. 14), but it is not included in the New Vulgate. The repetition of the same expression and the article in “the twelve” show the importance of the establishment of the apostolic college.

Source: The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries. Biblical text from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain. All sources accessed using Verbum Bible Software.

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