THE WORD AND THE SAINT
The first reading today presents to us the predicament of St. Paul as an apostle, as to how he had to suffer, suffer alone and suffer until death. But amidst all these he never lost sight of his vocation: to make the Lord known! The reading also names two of the four evangelists - Luke and Mark... wonderful examples of apostles who were totally dedicated to the call that they had received: to make the Lord known! Luke alone is with me, Paul recounts, bringing to us the information about Luke whom we celebrate today, Luke who it is said, knew our Blessed Mother in person and even attempted passing on to us a protrait of hers!
Celebrating Luke today, we are given to reflect about what it really means to make the Lord known where we are and in the times that we live. We see in the Gospel, as narrated by Luke, that the Lord sent them two by two, before him, to the villages which he was to visit, and gave them a specific message to announce. It is in that message that St. Luke gives us the key to understand what it means to make the Lord known... to make the Lord known is to make the Reign known!
The Reign of God is near, was the message they were to announce and that was actually making the Lord known to those people. Today, our message too has to be that: the Catholic Church has proclaimed for the past five decades that it has definitively entered into the age of New Evangelisation - that is a re-proclamation of the Lord, which has to coincide with our proclamation of the Reign of God. Amidst the atrocities of the times where the poor, the weak, and the powerless are trodden upon, we are called to announce the Reign, the Reign of justice and truth, the Reign of liberty and dignity of all, the Reign of equality and mutual respect! That is truly, making the Lord known!