As we find ourselves between the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, the Feast of the Apostle Thomas, and the Gospel reading for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)—where Jesus sends out the seventy-two disciples two by two to every place he intended to visit—we are naturally drawn to reflect on the apostolate. Again and again, we see the Lord choosing people not to remain idle, but to be sent.
The very word apostle comes from the Greek verb apostelló (ἀποστέλλω), which means “to send away” or “to dispatch on a mission.” It suggests movement, purpose, and being entrusted with something beyond oneself. In the New Testament, the term apostle does not only apply to the Twelve—the closest companions of Jesus whom the Evangelists often refer to simply as “the Twelve.” Rather, apostles were those who were sent by a living community of faith, usually in pairs, to proclaim and share the life they themselves had received in Christ.
This missionary identity did not end with the first generation of believers. Through the gift of the Holy Spirit received in the Sacrament of Confirmation, each of us is called to participate in this apostolic mission. The call to be apostles—heralds, witnesses, and ambassadors of the Gospel—is embedded in our Christian identity. For how could the joy of encountering Christ leave us satisfied with private devotion alone?
While not every Christian is an apostle in the formal sense of being specially chosen and sent, all of us are called to be living witnesses. Through what we think, say, and do, we prepare hearts to receive Christ and bring his peace into the world. According to our own place in the Church and in society, we are each sent—not to stand still, but to go forth with the Gospel.