This Sunday's readings are about being an Apostle.

They will help us answer three questions;
1. How are we to fulfill our vocations as Disciples of Christ,
2. Where are we going to be, in doing our duty,
3. And what is this apostolic mission anyway?

Our First Reading from the Acts of the Apostles, (Acts 1:15-17, 20-26), tells us that an apostle is 'a witness to the resurrection'. The Apostolic vocation each Christian receives at baptism is a vocation to witness to the fact that Jesus is raised from the dead and that he is living now in the community of the faithful. Therefore wherever we gather, we do so in his name, with his presence assured in our midst. This is what we should pride ourselves on because it gives us set values whose price cannot be measured.

How are we to do this? How are we to show ourselves in the light for all to see? How are we to witness to the resurrection of the Lord? Our second reading from the first letter of St. John gives us a good answer (1 John 4:11-16). What is important is the way in which we express ourselves. In truth whatever we do should be done in love. This love is what makes the Christian different. Any work well done is done in love and it is this that which will bear witness to the fact that you are a disciple of Christ. A teacher, a farmer, a fisherman can preach the gospel into places where no priest or catechist has ever been by the way he/she does his/her work. What matters is not what we do but how we do it. This is to say that all should be done in love.

Jesus made a prayer the night before he died as he sat at table with his disciples. This was a prayer to prepare them to enter into the heart of their new Christian vocation. His life was about to be marked with the sign of his cross and theirs also, would be in turn. So he prayed to the Father, 'As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world' (John 17:11-19, Gospel Reading). The world is the place where we are to work, the work of God.

But there is some difficulty; Jesus says we are strangers in the world just as he is; so how can we really work in the world where we are strangers? Being a witness to the resurrection means to be prepared to stick up for values which can't always be seen, which prices can't be tagged. Someone asked Mother Theresa once whether she was a saint, she answered 'yes' and then added, 'so are you'. It is not to be a religious or a priest that is important but to be a good witness to the resurrection. Vatican Two has always reminded us that the 'universal call to holiness' is a call to all the baptized and not only for a select few.

 We are all called to holiness; we pray the same version of the Lord's Prayer, the creed and many other prayers. In the creed, we say that we believe in the one holy, catholic and apostolic church. The church  body has the same vocation as the individual Christian. So like individual Christians, the church is to bear witness to the resurrection, we are a community of love present in the world, not apart from it, trying to make our presence felt.

Let us try to know the value of everything and not getting the price than knowing the price of everything without their value; or, we get to balance it out. Jesus gives this suggestion, love. When we love, we shall get a good balance and shall surely be able to witness the transforming presence of the risen Christ.