Feast of St Luke, Apostle
2 Tm 4:10-17 / Lk 10:1-9
When we hear today’s Gospel about the abundant harvest but the paucity of laborers, our minds tend to go in the direction of the current dearth of vocations and our need to pray for more. That’s a laudable instinct and a good prayer, but it puts an unhealthy distance between ourselves and the perennial problem of who will carry the Good News.
The real answer to that is, of course, that we all must be bearers of the Good News, not necessarily by taking on some formal role in our parishes, but by actively living the Good News. As Christians, we should be readily identifiable as truly and specially human in the best sense, just as Jesus was.
That leads us to ponder what Jesus was and was not, what He regularly did and what He did not. Jesus was brother and neighbor to every person whose path He crossed. He set no barriers against people and included everyone inside the circle of His love. His purpose with each was simply to help him or her thrive. Jesus spent little or no time at all indulging in trivial pious practices, but He spent abundant time both in pondering the Scriptures and in communing silently with the Father.
What better model could we ask? Jesus, our brother!
