We
always celebrate the feast days of the Evangelists in the liturgical calendar
of daily masses. Today, we celebrate
Luke, who 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 wrote his Gospel from a Gentile point-of-view
for a Gentile audience.
In
the reading we hear in today’s Gospel, Jesus sends out 72 disciples to bring
his Good New to the world, to bring his message of repentance and salvation 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 courage and enthusiasm, to not be shy or ashamed with the
message they are proclaiming. 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 is popular or politically correct in our secular world. 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 in the inspired word of God. It is meant to guide us and nurtures us no
matter where we are on our journey. 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 sense of
encouragement and edification in his calling to his missionary, to meet the
challenge of bringing the Gospel to the Gentiles. We, also, may get burdened by all of the
challenges and obstacles we meet on our journey in the modern world, especially
since we Catholics are such a small part of the population here in Mississippi. As a priest, I often receive a lot of
resentment and animosity and you could even say discrimination from other
Christian brothers and sisters here in Mississippi, and I am sure many of you
have encountered the same thing in your daily lives. 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.
We
thank Luke and the other Evangelists for the way they have passed down the
faith to us. Luke left his profession as
a doctor to become a missionary and to pass down the faith to us. May we take encouragement from his witness of
faith today.
