“Luke is the only one with me.” (2 Timothy 4:11)
“The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few…” (Luke 10:2)
The generation of the apostles was certainly marked by the heroic efforts of the Twelve, Saint Paul and Saint Barnabas, and others. Yet in comparison with the size of the world, compared to all those to whom they were entrusted to bring the shocking, consoling, good news of the death and resurrection of Christ, the apostles must have often felt the limits of their numbers. All the more so when of the few laborers laboring, some would stop. Even with the addition of Matthias, the Twelve must have felt the absence of Judas.Amongst the first seven deacons from Acts, the deacon Nicholas traditionally was the source of the early break away sect mentioned in Revelations 2. And in this letter to Timothy we hear Saint Paul describe how one by one all have left him alone, with one exception.
There is a certain loneliness that the Christian is called to embrace with Christ whose mission from the Father took him from the comforts and familiarity of his once home in Nazareth and placed him in the desert and on the road and in new place after new place. Saint Paul’s journeys gave him a certain solidarity with Christ in this way.
Saint Luke, called to proclaim to the world the life and wondrous works of Our Lord and His apostles, also embraced this union with the often unaccompanied Christ. And in remaining with Paul when all others did not, Luke could also offer a unique sense of Christ’s presence to this weary apostle. Luke was the one whom Saint Paul could join with in prayer to the Father; someone with whom he could share the burdens of his work and travels and difficulties. May this saint and evangelist pray for us, that we may proclaim Christ through our words, and in a particular way through faithful presence to our Christian brothers and sisters when they feel Christ’s loneliness.