These early disciples, the twelve, were not perfect people. They made many mistakes. Often we see in the gospels that Jesus gets impatient with them because they don’t understand what he’s saying. They argue among themselves about who is going to be greatest, and they bicker, and they fail to understand the real depth of his teaching. And they abandon him at the end. Peter, the biggest failure, denies him three times. So why do we look to these disciples as the model of our discipleship? They don’t seem to be very good disciples, but he was faithful to them. There was this connection. And once this connection is made he is faithful to it, and even if we are unfaithful he remains faithful to us. That’s the great strength of Christian discipleship – you don’t have to be perfect you just have to be faithful and to know that he is faithful to us.
(Christian Life in the Light of Christian Meditation 1: Discipleship by Laurence Freeman OSB )
