In Luke's gospel we often find Jesus praying before important decisions in his life. Today our Gospel opens with Jesus spending the whole night in prayer. In the morning, he calls his disciples together and chooses 12 of them to be Apostles. There is a difference in meaning between 'disciple' and 'apostle'. A disciple is one who learns from a Master how to behave, how to live one's life, how to be a follower. An apostle is a much more active term. It indicates a disciple who is sent out to spread the teaching of the master and that was the special role of the 12 Apostles in today's Gospel. We might reflect that each one of us is called by our baptism to be both a disciple (learning the Way of Jesus) and an apostle (continuing the teaching and healing work of Jesus and working to bring about the Kingdom of God in our world). Jesus then comes down from the mountain with his newly chosen apostles and they are faced by a huge crowd of people seeking to be healed and cured of their troublesome spirits. Everyone wanted to touch Jesus physically because they sense that a healing power went out from him. In time, the disciples, too, will experience the same power emanating from them. And, for us, too, there is the same challenge to bring healing and wholeness into our society.