Today we celebrate the feast of St. Luke, the Evangelist and
the author of St. Luke’s Gospel and the Act of the Apostles. St. Luke was the one who stayed with St. Paul
and assisted him in his ministry to the Gentiles at a time when several others
abandoned Paul in pursuit of those things of the present world that captivated
and charmed their worldly ambitions and secular appetites.
You and I also have a choice of following the Spirit’s call
to assist those in Church ministries, to spend time building up the Kingdom of
God in our families, with our friends and in our workplaces. We, too, are called by our baptism to be ambassadors for Christ, to nurture and share the
faith or, like those who abandoned Paul, can choose to
abandon our baptismal call and pursue only those things which the secular world
offers.
The psalmist of today’s
responsorial psalm, Psalm 145, says to God: “Your friends make known, O Lord,
the glorious splendor of your Kingdom.” Am I a friend of the Lord’s? Am I proclaiming
God’s glorious Kingdom by works of love and compassion as husband/wife, as mother/father? Am I proclaiming God's Kingdom by lifting burdens off the
oppressed, marginalized and the poor of this world? Or am I too taken up with
secular, narcissistic, selfish ambitions and thus neglect the goods that are eternal?
Am I too preoccupied with the glamor the world offers to be bothered with
those things God offers through the Church, through the Scriptures, through
readings that nurture the spiritual life? Am I blinded by what my ego wants and oblivious
to the spirit within me that begs to be nourished and that challenges me to reach high ideals and help others
do so as well? Am I even aware when the choices I make are contrary to God-centered values which Jesus--
the Way, the Truth and the Life-- models
for us in the Gospels?
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