The readings from Amos and Mark tell about people who receive a
mission. In both cases the people with the mission are rather
ordinary: Amos is a shepherd and tree dresser, the apostles are
mostly fishermen.
The latter symbolize the ordinary people through whom God works for
the salvation of the world.
Many people stay out of the struggle for a better world, believing
that only important people and the specially talented make a
difference. They should remember this shepherd and these
fishermen.
These messengers carry similar messages. The apostles preached the
need for repentance, that is, the need for people to change their
way of living.
Amos also spoke about the need to live differently, and that is why
the priest was throwing him out of Bethel. The established religion
of the Northern Kingdom, centered in Bethel, felt threatened by this
prophet of social justice.
In the religion of Amos, “God proclaims peace to his people
and justice shall look down from heaven so that justice and peace
shall kiss.” Amaziah wanted nothing of that.
The apostles were to take nothing with them on the journey but their
companionship (“two by two”) and the authority they
received from Jesus. Their mission was to confront the evil embodied
in society and to “reject what is contrary to the
Gospel.”
The laity share in the priestly, prophetic, and royal office of Christ and therefore have their own role to play in the mission of the whole People of God in the Church and in the world. They exercise a genuine apostolate by their activity on behalf of bringing the gospel and holiness to men, and on behalf of penetrating and perfecting the temporal sphere of things through the spirit of the Gospel.Vatican II, Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity,
1965: paragraph 2.