Daily Archives: June 9, 2026

When the Beatitudes become visible

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Today is the second of three consecutive days when I am presiding at the parish daily Mass. The three gospels are all taken from Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount. What follows is really one longer reflection delivered over three days because these three Gospel passages form a remarkably coherent sequence. They are not merely three disconnected sections of the Sermon on the Mount; they describe a progression in Christian discipleship:

  • Who we are becoming (The Beatitudes) – yesterday
  • What our lives are meant to do (Salt and Light) – today
  • The foundation upon which we live (Fulfillment of the Law) – tomorrow

Together they form a unified theme: The Shape, the Mission, and the Foundation of the Christian Life.

In yesterday’s reflection, we noted that the Beatitudes remind us that God is not simply interested in improving our behavior. The challenge of the first reflection was: what kind of person is God shaping me to become? Jesus’ hope is that the transformation of our hearts will shape our lives as Christians. 

Our Lives Visible to the World

Today Jesus’ goal is to show us what happens when that Christian life becomes visible. Jesus tells the disciples, “You are the salt of the earth….You are the light of the world.” Notice that Jesus does not say, “You should try to become salt” or “You should try to become light.” He says, “You are.” Such is the commission of our Baptism. The question is whether we are living in a way that fulfills that identity.

Salt changes whatever it touches. Light transforms darkness simply by being present. That is what happens when the Beatitudes become real in a person’s life. A merciful person changes the atmosphere of a family. A peacemaker changes the atmosphere of a workplace. A person who hungers and thirsts for righteousness changes the atmosphere of a community. It is the difference between being a thermometer that just reflects the temperature of the room and being a thermostat that sets the temperature.

The world often imagines that such influence comes from power, wealth, status, or attention. Jesus offers another vision. The disciple influences the world not primarily through position, but through witness.

Think of the people who have most influenced your faith. They were probably not famous. They may have been a parent, grandparent, teacher, coach, friend, priest, or religious sister. Their influence came from the way they lived. Their lives were the salt that seasoned your life; the light that reflected Christ into your world.

That is what Jesus means when he says: “Your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.” The goal is not that people notice us. The goal is that people see something of God through us. What we have received from others, we pay forward by the lives we live.

Yesterday we asked: Who is God shaping me to become? Today we ask: What effect does that transformed life have on others? The answer is simple: a life formed by the Beatitudes becomes salt for and light that changes the world.

Image credit: Sermon on the Mount (1877) by Carl Heinrich Bloch, Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Castle, Public Domain

The Apostles

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This Sunday is the 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time. The gospel is from the opening verses of the Matthean Missionary Discourse. From the first verses one should notice a change in vocabulary as Jesus “summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness. The names of the twelve apostles…” (Mt 10:1-2) Up until this point those who follow Jesus have been referred to as “disciples.”

The term “disciple” generally refers to a follower or student of a teacher. In the context of the Gospel of Matthew, it primarily refers to those who followed Jesus during his earthly ministry, learning from his teachings and observing his actions. The disciples were individuals who chose to follow Jesus, committing themselves to his teachings and the way of life he exemplified. They were his close companions, accompanying him on his journeys, witnessing his miracles, and receiving personal instruction from him.

The term “apostle” specifically refers to a subset of disciples who were appointed by Jesus for a specific mission. The word apostle comes from the Greek word apostolos, which means “one who is sent out.” In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus chooses twelve of his disciples and designates them as apostles. The names of the twelve apostles are listed: Simon (Peter), Andrew, James and John (the sons of Zebedee), Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James (son of Alphaeus), Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot (who later betrayed Jesus). While all apostles were disciples, not all disciples were apostles. The apostles had a unique commission to continue the work of Jesus after his departure, spreading the good news, establishing the church, and teaching others to observe all that Jesus had commanded them (Matthew 28:19-20).

This is the only time Matthew uses the word “apostle.” In the remainder of the gospel they are indicated by context or are referred to as “the Twelve.” R.T. France [2007, 375] notes: “It is surprising that Matthew does not use again what must have been, by the time he wrote his gospel, a familiar title for this inner group, but perhaps this indicates his awareness of a difference in function between the ‘apostles’ as church leaders in his day and the role of the Twelve as companions of Jesus during his ministry.”

Note that this is not an account of their “calling” as a group of 12. As individuals they had already been called, but even here they seem to be an already established group as they are “summoned.” The Gospels of Mark and Luke also list the apostles. With the exception of Thaddeus, the names are the same in all these lists, though the order of the names and the descriptions of the individuals vary a little. Scholars have noted that Matthew’s list has two distinctive features: it is arranged in pairs (perhaps reflecting the tradition that they were sent out in pairs and Simon (Peter), who comes first in all the lists and whose leading role among the twelve is clear in all the gospels, is explicitly designated in Matthew as “first,” even though no further numbering follows for the remainder of the names.

France [2007, 376] notes:

Jesus’ choice of twelve as the number of his inner circle has, and must surely have had at the time, obvious symbolic importance as the number of the sons of Jacob and thus of the tribes of Israel. People might have remembered Moses’ choice of twelve tribal leaders in Num 1:1–16, and it is even possible that Matthew’s phrase “These are the names of …” is a deliberate echo of Num 1:4, “These are the names of the men who shall assist you.” The symbolism will become explicit in 19:28, where these twelve disciples are given an eschatological role when, alongside the Son of Man seated on his own glorious throne, they too “will sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” There is no reason to believe that these twelve Galilean men were in fact drawn from all twelve traditional tribes; their significance was in their number, not in their ancestry. When one of the Twelve was lost (note the emphatic “the eleven disciples” in 28:16, after Judas’ death), the number was sufficiently important for him to need to be replaced (Acts 1:15–26), though even before that Paul continues to refer to them as “the Twelve” (1 Cor 15:5). So from an early point in his ministry Jesus was apparently thinking in terms of an alternative “Israel” with its own leadership based now not on tribal origin but on the Messiah’s call.

Image credit: Duccio di Buoninsegna, 1308-1311, National Gallery of Art, Public Domain