Wednesday, October 18, 2023

Saint Luke, Evangelist

2 Tim 4:10-17;

Ps 144;

Lk 10:1-9

The Church is mission. To make this clear, we are helped by today’s Gospel. The Lord Jesus sends 72 apostles who will repeat the deeds and words spoken and carried out by Jesus himself. This getting close to others, through proclamation and concrete gestures, represents at bottom the very action of God, his nature. God coming out of himself to meet man, a man wounded and without orientation because of the wound of sin. In this going out of God in search of man one must find the reason for the Church and its mission. The Church, and each Christian who composes it, find their meaning in bearing witness to God, to the God whom Jesus Christ has made known and revealed to us. The evangelist Luke, whose memory we commemorate today, through the Gospel account and from the Acts of the Apostles he wrote tells us this good news. Here then is the task of the Church and every baptized person: to be a sign of this good news, in the simplicity of life.

“When you come across a good thing, you talk about it. And when you come across a true thing, you talk about it. And if you have realized that the story of Jesus has illuminated the path of the world and of man by giving it meaning, then you talk about it. You cannot do without it. And if the encounter with Jesus has changed your existence giving it strength, direction, meaning, then you invite friends to share it.” (Bruno Maggioni)