We celebrate Luke the Evangelist today. Luke wrote not only the Gospel of Luke, but also the Acts of the Apostles. Every Gospel had an audience to which it was
targeted; Luke was written from a Gentile point-of-view for a Gentile
audience.
In the reading we hear in today’s
Gospel, Jesus calls 72 disciples to follow him, sending them out to bring the
God’s world to people who may not have been very open to the message that these
disciples are proclaiming. Yet, Jesus
tells them to preach this word with great courage and zeal, to not be shy or
ashamed with the Gospel they are announcing to the world. This is a good message for all of us, since
we will all encounter some kind of obstacles or resistance along our own
journeys of faith. We reassure ourselves
in knowing that God’s truth is the truth no matter what. God indeed will sustain the disciples as they
witness to his message and proclaim his kingdom, just as God will sustain us
along our own journeys as well. The
word of God that Luke wrote down for us guide us and nurtures us. We are to digest it, to reflect upon it, to
have its meaning really penetrate our lives.
In his second letter to Timothy, Paul
talks about all of the disciples who have deserted him, yet Luke stays loyally
at his side. Yet, Paul still retains a
courage and enthusiasm in his calling to his missionary, to meet the challenge
of bringing the Gospel to the Gentile.
We, also, may get burdened by all of the challenges and obstacles we met
on our journey, since we Catholics are such a small part of the population here
in Yazoo City and throughout the Delta.
Yet, our community of faith here is always here with us. We will meet our challenges together as a
community of faith, nurturing each other along the way.
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