Homily for the Feast of Sts. Simon & Jude, Apostles

While all of the Gospels tell the story of Jesus choosing His Apostles, only Luke tells us that, before choosing them, Jesus spent the whole night in prayer to His Father. This was something He prayed about; His choice of those twelve people came as a result of His prayer. Actually, Luke stresses that Jesus prayed before all the crucial moments of His life — just after His baptism, just before He set out to go to Jerusalem, while in the Garden of Gethsemane as He neared His passion and death; on the Cross only moments before He died.

 

We, too, should turn to our Father in prayer at significant moments in our own lives. During those moments, we need to appreciate our need for guidance, strength, and courage from God. Our prayer does not necessarily mean that all will work out perfectly for us. We know that, although Jesus spent the whole night in prayer before He chose the Twelve, one of them would go on to betray him. Yet, we can be sure that our prayerful surrender to the LORD at such times will always create space for Him to work, even when things do not work out as we had hoped. +