Company

“It is in the company of Jesus that you work for the glory of God.” (Saint John Baptist de la Salle).

Christ and the Apostles (Georges Rouault)

Can you imagine how it must have felt to be one of the Apostles?

I often reflect on how it must have felt to be walking next to God, Himself?

I imagine the dawning realisation as they started with curiosity and listened and watched and later reflected and believed.  I imagine how they would have spent time studying His Face and His mannerisms.  I imagine how they would have thought about how He reacted to things and how He choose to respond to trials.  Perhaps they would have discussed this with each other because they would have been able – upon reflection – to realise that they would not be able to pick fault with God at all?  Perhaps they would have stayed up late and discussed this with each other and decided that actually nobody could remember a single time that Christ had acted in a way that was less than perfect.  Upon reflection God was always right and perfect and gentle and calm.  Upon reflection His love was perfect and inclusive.  Perhaps there were times that they did not understand these new and radical ideas, but there was certainly nothing to criticise there – only newness and wonder.  Fancy hearing from a teacher of the Jewish Law that God wants us to forgive?  That He wants us to love our neighbours?  This from a religion that allowed an eye for an eye and advocated that the Jewish people were the Chosen People, and therefore the religion was restricted from others…

And yet, through all of this, those Apostles walked hand-in-hand with Christ.  They saw how He was and heard what He said.  The miracles of Christ were their miracles.  Perhaps in some cases, Christ performed the miracles as much for the faith of the Apostles as for the faith of those who requested His help?

And I have been thinking about the holy and blessed nature of the Apostles in being companions of Christ…  But that raises a different reflection to me…  What is the difference between the Apostles from twenty centuries ago and me?

I am also an apostle of Christ.  I was also chosen by Him.

And in many ways my discipleship is much easier than theirs had been.  I am not doing something new and unheard of.  The world that I live in does not persecute me for my belief in God.  Nobody will send me to the Circus to do unarmed battle with a lion because I am a Christian.

All I am asked to do is to remember that I am an apostle of God and that He is walking alongside me.  And that means – to use the words of Saint John Baptist de la Salle, “It is in the company of Jesus that you work for the glory of God.”

And it seems to me today, that I have spent my lifetime forgetting in whose company I am in…  And that is a terrible sin.  A terrible terrible sin…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.