Friday, January 19, 2018

Friday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time

(I Samuel 24:3-21; Mark 3:13-19)

Today’s first reading establishes David as worthy of being Israel’s king.  He has shown military prowess when he slew Goliath.  Now he is pictured as piously refusing to harm the Lord’s anointed one.  Eventually David will falter, but he begins with all the promise of Michelangelo chiseling the “Pieta” in St. Peter’s Basilica.

The disciples whom Jesus chooses as his apostles in today’s gospel similarly have an auspicious start.  They are all Jews but from various backgrounds.  Like young men drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II, they will be molded into a victorious evangelizing force.  But not all of them will make the grade; indeed, they all stumble on the way.  First, Judas will remove himself from the company of apostles by betraying Jesus.  The others will abandon Jesus in the garden with Peter acting especially ignobly afterwards by denying discipleship. 


We have been chosen for glory like David and for evangelizing like the apostles.  Though we may not have been able to give personal assent to this choice at Baptism, we have accepted the Lord into our lives.  We too may falter in carrying out some duties, perhaps grievously like Peter.  But Jesus is ever willing to forgive us.  Then all the more we can proclaim God’s eternal love.