STEADFAST WITNESSING OF THE GOSPEL

FEAST OF ST. LUKE, EVANGELIST

2 Tim 4:10-17; Ps 145:10-13a,17-18; Lk 10:1-9

We are Labourers in the Harvest of the Lord

We celebrate the feast of St. Luke the Evangelist. As we read in the first reading taken from the second letter of St. Paul to Timothy, Luke was one of the followers of the apostles. He was with Paul in some of his missionary work and had encounter with other apostles of the Lamb. He is the author of the Acts of the Apostles and the third Gospel, which, according to him, was an ordered account he put together for Theophilus from the testimonies of those who were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The vocation of a Christian is to bear witness to the Gospel in our daily life. The Gospel values are to define our lives. We must bear witness to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ daily by the kind of life we live. The most important and fundamental aspect of our call to be labourers in the vineyard of the Lord is this daily testimony we bear to the Gospel. As basic and easy as it may seem and sound, the success of this fundamental preaching exercise is heavily dependent on our prayer life. Without a consistent, fervent, and frequent personal prayer, we will fail very often to bear witness to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus. St. Paul’s experience lends support to this statement. “Demas has deserted me for love of this life and gone to Thessalonica, Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia; only Luke is with me.” This testifies to St. Luke’s steadfastness through which he supported Paul in his need. Preachers and ministers of the Gospel need our steadfast support daily.

When we fail to renew our communion with the Lord in interior prayer daily, the spiritual realities gradually lose their grip on us, and our faith starts failing in the face of the temptations of this world. The love of this life, which took Demas would make us unfaithful to Christ in the little things of everyday life. These failures and sins from lack of faith in God would pool together to make us abandon our Christian commitment. When a Christian falls into mortal sin and rationalises his fall, he becomes a dangerous agent of evil because he starts working against the Gospel values. Alexander the coppersmith was in that state. “Alexander the coppersmith has done me a lot of harm; the Lord will repay him for what he has done. Be on your guard against him yourself, because he has been bitterly contesting everything that we say.” These two were not the only ones who deserted Paul in his preaching apostolate and in the time of his need for support. This support was not the need for someone to preach the Gospel with him in Rome, but someone to identify with him, stand by him, and encourage him in his work as brothers. “The first time I had to present my defence, there was not a single witness to support me. Every one of them deserted me—may they not be held accountable for it.”

This ordinary sense and everyday understanding of Gospel witnessing is necessary and constitutes a foundation for the support of missionaries and preachers of the Gospel. The number of such active Christians indicates the health of a local church or parish. St. Luke wrote his Gospel to encourage and support this common sense and fundamental idea of Christian witnessing. He wrote the Gospel for the poor and faithful Christians. The Lord appoints and sends out preachers and missionaries from such a faithful community of Christians. “The Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them out ahead of him, in pairs, to all the towns and places he himself was to visit. He said to them, ‘The harvest is rich but the labourers are few, so ask the Lord of the harvest to send labourers to his harvest.” The first fulfilment of this obligation to pray and ask the Lord of the harvest for labourers is for each of us to become a faithful and prayerful Christian. We must commit quality time to prayer every day. The Lord’s grace will flow from this commitment to strengthen our daily witnessing of the Gospel in our daily activities at home, and our workplace. Our faithfulness to the Gospel in little things will re-enforce the presence of God in our families and society and push back forces of evil and darkness, thereby strengthening the preachers of the Gospel; which was what Paul desired. Friends of God are those who keep his company every day. “They make known to men your mighty deeds and the glorious splendour of your reign.”

Let us pray: Lord God, who chose Saint Luke to reveal by his preaching and writings the mystery of your love for the poor, grant that all nations may merit to see your salvation.