Wednesday October 18, 2017
Luke has stayed with Paul while others have left him and he asks Timothy to come and join them and bring Mark along too (they were friends in the work of the Lord). Poor Paul complains about others and his case in court. He says that everyone abandoned him, and yet Luke remained with him. Luke was an evangelist, a preacher and missionary, a leader in the early church, a companion to those in ministry, and a good friend it seems.
Luke's Gospel: speaks of a community that goes out in twos to preach and to bring in the harvest that the Lord has created in others' hearts. They are people dedicated to being a radical presence of the kingdom of God-where all are taken care of and everyone relies on the hospitality of one another. This is image of our God who is hospitable to us in Jesus and the Spirit. The message is that of peace-the peace of the Risen Lord, the peace of forgiveness and new life, the peace of the reign of God-justice, mercy, and initiation into the life of God in Jesus. Luke left the Word of the Lord as his best gift to the early church and to believers for all time.
Alternative
Traditionally, the task of “reaping the harvest” has been left for priests and religious. Yet it is a universal call to every baptized Christian. Each of us is called to preach the good news, using our God-given gifts and the context in which we live. Luke, whose holy memory we keep today, was one such ordinary Christian who preached the Gospel: using his many gifts. Tradition reckons that Luke was a Gentile physician from Antioch (“our beloved physician,” Paul calls him [Col 4:14]), who joined the company of Paul and travelled with him in his mission tours and remained with him during his trials (“Only Luke remains with me,” says Paul [2 Tim 4:11]). During his association with Paul and other apostles, he learned much about Jesus and the early Church. What he learned he wrote down, giving us the Gospel: according to Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. If one’s writings reveal one’s character, then the themes—mercy, compassion, desire for universal salvation, concern for the poor, total renunciation for Christ’s sake, prayer, and disarming honesty and candor—found in the two writings of Luke reveal much about him.
St. Luke, pray for us!
