We certainly need apostles in today’s Church, but what is the Lord Himself actually doing while the Twelve are out preaching? We are not directly told. However, in a passage from John’s gospel with many parallels (chh. 15-17), Jesus prays that the Holy Spirit may keep the Apostles in truth. Rejoicing in the Spirit, He gives thanks to the Father for the mission. Finally, He prays that all may be one, as He and the Father are one [17: 22]. For this purpose He consecrates Himself by His death, that the Apostles may also be consecrated.
Now, that Jesus may have been praying very much in this vein during the pre-Resurrection mission (surely the model for the post-Pentecost mission!) is confirmed by the following verses in Luke’s gospel. Upon the return of the seventy, He “rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth…” [10: 21]. This paragraph is known by Biblical scholars as a ‘Johannine logion’, meaning a saying of the Lord’s that sounds like it was transplanted from John’s gospel. So there is clearly overlap here.
In any case, if we wish to meditate on this mystery in an Incarnational way, we must learn to recapitulate in our own lives the life of Christ. We must allow for the possibility that our contribution to the Church’s mission might entail the self-immolation that is a life of ceaseless prayer, perhaps even with aspects of the cloister. Christ is ‘hidden’ during this mission, like St. Thérèse of Lisieux, in order to strengthen the Apostles in a mystical fashion. We do this when we rejoice in the Holy Spirit, give thanks to the Father, and pray that our leaders in the faith may all be one.