The apostles our Lord chose to spread the Good News—the “earthen vessels” Saint Paul speaks of—were mainly simple men, often fallible and weak. In today’s Gospel, for instance, James’s and John’s ambition leads them to ask—through their mother, of course—for places of honor in Jesus’s Kingdom. They do not understand the inversion of societal values that the Gospel brings, and so our Lord has to explain to them that he “did not come to be served but to serve” (Matt 20:28).
And yet: through these fallible, imperfect apostles, the Holy Spirit worked wonders, and the message of salvation has reached the end of the earth (cf. Psa 19). This fact, that the Lord chooses instruments which are fragile and imperfect, should be a source of consolation and encouragement for us, who also share in the mission of evangelization through our baptism. No matter our limitations—and at times precisely through them—the Lord is at work, if only we invite him to be with us and strive to remain faithful.
Today, let us ponder the marvel of our Lord’s choice of imperfect, weak human beings, then and now, to share the Good News. And let us take courage and ask the Spirit to be with us in our work of evangelization.