Feast of Saint Luke, Evangelist
What better finale for the week than the dynamic duo of St. Paul the great Apostle to the Gentiles, followed by St. Luke the Evangelist who wrote with pastoral sensitivity? Someone might say that these two readings combine to give us an important insight into both the messenger and the message of the Good News. With the modern emphasis on “glossy presentation” of the news, it’s refreshing to look behind the scenes of the most important news of all. St. Paul is sharing the nitty gritty of his personal struggle and disappointment caused by those who don’t share his passion to preach to the gentiles. His is the loneliness of the torch bearer.
St. Luke captures that same unvarnished reality when he describes Jesus sending his untested disciples off to carry the Good News to the four winds. Scholars tell us that St. Luke had the advantage of oral tradition and wrote some seven or eight decades after the Resurrection of Jesus and therefore could record the astonishing effects of that original commission. It’s absolutely critical to notice the central message and the most effective tool given to them. They announced that the Kingdom of God was within reach at that very moment and they backed it up by demonstrating the meaning of peace. In a marvelous way, that powerful Good News radiated from broken but inspired instruments.
In a leap of faith no less than that of those first disciples, can we bring our baptismal torch of truth, peace, and hope into any circle of darkness? The time is now!
Reflection by Fr. Daniel Petsche, OSB
Posted in Articles for Ordinary Time, Daily Reflections