Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy Immortal One,
Have mercy on us
Agios o Theos, Agios ischyros, Agios athanatos,
eleison imas.
Sanctus Deus, Sanctus Fortis, Sanctus Immortalis,
miserere nobis

Psalms

Antiphon:
Go forth and proclaim the good news of the kingdom; and freely share with others what God has given you.


Reading
God has entrusted to us the news of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ; it is as though God were appealing through us, and the appeal that we make in Christ’s name is: be reconciled to God. - 2 Cor. 5:19-20

Responsory
Their voice has gone out to the limits of the earth.
     - Their words to the ends of the world.

COLLECT
O God, who by the blessed Apostles
have brought us to acknowledge your name,
graciously grant,
through the intercession of Saints Simon and Jude,
that the Church may constantly grow
by increase of the peoples who believe in you.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.

Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy Immortal One,
Have mercy on us
Agios o Theos, Agios ischyros, Agios athanatos,
eleison imas.
Sanctus Deus, Sanctus Fortis, Sanctus Immortalis,
miserere nobis

Psalms

Antiphon
Know that i am with you always, even until the end of the world.

Reading
Many signs and wonders were worked among the people at the hands of the apostles and the numbers of men and women who came to believe in the Lord increased steadily. - Acts5:12-14

The Apostles held fast to Christ's message.
     - They kept the precepts he gave them.. RESPONSORY          
I no longer call you servants but my friends,
   - for I have shared with you everything
I have heard from my Father.

The mysteries of the kingdom of heaven have been revealed to you;
blessed are your eyes because they see and your ears because they hear.
   - for I have shared with you everything
I have heard from my Father.


READING

From a commentary on the gospel of John by St Cyril of Alexandria, bishop
(Lib. 12,1: PG 74, 707-710)

As the father sent me, so I am sending you

Our Lord Jesus Christ has appointed certain men to be guides and teachers of the world and stewards of his divine mysteries. Now he bids them to shine out like lamps and to cast out their light not only over the land of the Jews but over every country under the sun and over people scattered in all directions and settled in distant lands. That man has spoken truly who said: "No one takes honour upon himself, except the one who is called by God," for it was our Lord Jesus Christ who called his own disciples before all others to a most glorious apostolate. These holy men became the pillar and mainstay of the truth, and Jesus said that he was sending them just as the Father had sent him.

By these words he is making clear the dignity of the apostolate and the incomparable glory of the power given to them, but he is also, it would seem, giving them a hint about the methods they are to adopt in their apostolic mission. For if Christ thought it necessary to send out his intimate disciples in this fashion, just as the Father had sent him, then surely it was necessary that they whose mission was to be patterned on that of Jesus should see exactly why the Father had sent the Son. And so Christ interpreted the character of his mission to us in a variety of ways. Once he said: "I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance. "And then at another time he said:" I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. For God sent his Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him."

Accordingly, in affirming that they are sent by him just as he was sent by the Father, Christ sums up in a few words the approach they themselves should take to their ministry. From what he said they would gather that it was their vocation to call sinners to repentance, to heal those who were sick whether in body or spirit, to seek in all their dealings never to do their own will but the will of him who sent them, and as far as possible to save the world by their teaching.

Surely it is in all these respects that we find his holy disciples striving to excel. To ascertain this is no great labour, a single reading of the Acts of the Apostles or of Saint Paul's writings is enough.


RESPONSORY          
You did not choose me, but I chose you
to go forth and bear fruit
   - that will last forever.

My father is glorified when you bring forth food in abundance.
   - that will last forever.

COLLECT
O God, who by the blessed Apostles
have brought us to acknowledge your name,
graciously grant,
through the intercession of Saints Simon and Jude,
that the Church may constantly grow
by increase of the peoples who believe in you.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.