In today’s Gospel, Jesus warns his disciples that they will suffer for him in their trials and tribulations, but that he will be there accompanying them, strengthening them, and protecting them. Today’s reading is a continuation of yesterday’s Gospel from the 21st chapter of Luke’s Gospel. Jesus warns his disciples about the upcoming persecutions and violence that they will have to endure. The members of the Early Church will soon face these things that Jesus warned them about. Those things will also play out throughout the history of the Church, including in our modern era. Jesus tells his disciples that they will be handed over to prisons and synagogues. Think of how John the Baptist was handed over to King Herod, being put in prison and eventually put to death. Jesus, too, will be handed over to the civil and religious authorities. Why would Christ’s disciples be worried about being handed over to the synagogues, since they are practicing Jews themselves? Many of Christ’s followers in the first century found themselves in conflict with the Jewish synagogues and institutions. In the first century, the synagogues were not only places of religious worship, but also, they were places of civil administration, a place where civil trials were held. When I became a priest in 2008, I never dreamed of the open hostility that we Christians would face in North America and Europe today, of the secularism that is trying to wipe out any influence Christianity has on our society. Perhaps in reading the Sacred Scriptures and studying Church history, we can better understand what we are going through and realize that in many ways, history repeats itself. May we learn from the challenges and struggles of the past.
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