The
preaching of the apostles
Our Lord Jesus Christ himself
declared what he was, what he had been, how he was carrying out his Father’s
will, what obligations he demanded of men.
This he did during his earthly life, either publicly to the crowds or
privately to his disciples. Twelve of
these he picked out to be his special companions, appointed to teach the
nations.
One of them fell from his
place. The remaining eleven were
commanded by Christ, as he was leaving the earth to return to the Father after
his resurrection, to go and teach the nations and to baptize them into the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
The apostles cast lots and added
Matthias to their number, in place of Judas, as the twelfth apostle. The authority for this action is to be found
in a prophetic psalm of David. After
receiving the power of the Holy Spirit which had been promised to them, so that
they could work miracles and proclaim the truth, they first bore witness to
their faith in Jesus Christ and established churches throughout Judea. They then went out into the whole world and
proclaimed to the nations the same doctrinal faith.
They set up churches in every
city. Other churches received from them
a living transplant of faith and the seed of doctrine, and through this daily
process of transplanting they became churches.
They therefore qualify as apostolic churches by being the offspring of
churches that are apostolic.
Every family has to be traced
back to its origins. That is why we can
say that all these great churches constitute that one original Church of the
apostles; for it is from them that they all came. They are all primitive, all apostolic,
because they are all one. They bear
witness to this unity by the peace in which they all live, the brotherhood
which is their name, the fellowship to which they are pledged. The principle on which these associations are
based is common tradition by which they share the same sacramental bond.
The only way in which we can
prove what the apostles taught—that is to say, what Christ revealed to them by
the apostles themselves, who first preached to them by what is called the
living voice and later by means of letters.
The Lord had said clearly in
former times: I have many more things to tell you, but you cannot endure them now. But he went on to say: When
the Spirit of truth comes, he will lead you into the whole truth. Thus Christ shows us that the apostles had
full knowledge of the truth, for he had promised that they would receive the whole truth through the Spirit of
truth. His promise was certainly
fulfilled, since the Acts of the Apostles prove that the Holy Spirit came down
on them.
Taken from
the Liturgy of the Hours, According to the Roman Rite, Ordinary Time, Catholic
Book Publishing Corp. New York, 1975
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