As Jesus travels toward Jerusalem, He sends His disciples ahead of Him to prepare people for His visiting their towns and villages.  These disciples were given much the same charge as the Twelve.  Like the Twelve, the seventy are related to the origins of Israel.  Whereas the twelve apostles relate to the twelve sons of Israel, the seventy relate to the seventy elders Moses gathered around Himself as the elders of Israel.

These seventy received some of the spirit God had given to Moses, and they would assist Moses in leading the people.  The seventy disciples represent Jesus when He is absent and they carry out what will be the work of the Church.  To hear or reject them is to hear or reject Jesus as well as Him who sent Jesus.

The disciples return to Jesus, reporting great success.  Yet the important thing is not what the disciples have done, but that their “names are written in heaven.”  God values us for who we are more than for what we can do for Him, even though he expects our service.  Jesus rejoices that God has made Himself known to the ordinary men and  women who Jesus called to be disciples.  He rejoices in the way that Gods’ Kingdom was being revealed to them, joining them to the Father.

Even if these disciples often failed to understand, even if they made mistakes, even if they wavered,  never the less Jesus had changed their lives where it counted most.  Jesus brought them and would continue to bring them into a relationship with His Father as their Father, fulfilling the hopes and longings of earlier ages.  Jesus did that for His early disciples, and he also does it for you and me – His disciples today.

God Bless

Msgr. Powell