6th week of Pentecost

1 Corinthians 12:12-13, 27-30
As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit. Now you are Christ’s body, and individually parts of it. Some people God has designated in the church to be, first, apostles; second, prophets; third, teachers; then, mighty deeds; then, gifts of healing, assistance, administration, and varieties of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work mighty deeds? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?

Matthew 10:16-25
“Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves. But beware of people, for they will hand you over to courts and scourge you in their synagogues, and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake as a witness before them and the pagans. When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say. You will be given at that moment what you are to say. For it will not be you who speak but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will hand over brother to death, and the father his child; children will rise up against parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by all because of my name, but whoever endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in one town, flee to another. Amen, I say to you, you will not finish the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes. No disciple is above his teacher, no slave above his master. It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, for the slave that he become like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more those of his household!

The Prayer of the Faithful, vol. III: Ramsho – Proemion
Praise, glory and honor to the living Immortal One, who by his death, gave life to his creatures, by his resurrection, gave joy to the flock, and by his rising from the tomb, saved his Church.
He fills the heirs to his paradise with joy and consoles his flock by his appearance among them. He is the Good Lord to whom is due glory and honor this morning, and all the days of our lives, now and for ever. Amen.
Meditation on the Sunday of The Sending of the Apostles
The Maronite Church again this Sunday contemplates the Apostolic foundations of the Church. We must remember that from earliest centuries the Church self-identified as being – One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. What does it mean that our faith is Apostolic and Christic? It means that our faith is grounded on the witness of the Apostles who were given the most cherished and blessed experience of encountering and seeing the Risen Lord, our faith is their faith or rather their faith is our faith, for we are their children in the faith and our faith is in Jesus Christ, the Crucified Lord, who has broken the bonds of death. He appeared to his Apostles and later to Paul on the road to Damascus, he strengthened their faith and removed as in the dramatic encounter with Thomas, their doubt. Then he sealed their faith with the Holy Spirit.
We see in today’s readings and Divine Liturgy that the Church is not just like a body, but it is a Body, the Body of Christ. Drawing from the Fathers of the Church, who saw in human beings the image of the Triune God, in that humanity like God is by nature triune so too the Church. Of course the One God we know from our Apostolic Faith is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Fathers saw in the nature of men of women the unity of body, soul, and spirit. The Church being a community of human beings is also body, soul, and spirit. The body of the Church allows it to be a material reality in the world, it is visible, and has visible material attributes; the soul of the Church is that it is animated by the presence of Jesus Christ, the Church lives in, through, and with Jesus, it is His living presence in the world and He is its life blood. The spirit of the Church is it’s calling and its end, when it celebrates the Holy Mysteries, preaches the Good News of salvation, forgives sins, anoints with the oil of salvation, and binds men and women in vows of eternal fidelity, the spirit of the Church empowered by the Holy Spirit fulfills it’s calling of bestowing the Grace of Christ upon all humanity.