18 October 2022
Feast of Saint Luke, Evangelist
Today, the Church celebrates the feast of an Evangelist, Saint Luke. Instead of the continued reading from Luke 12, she proposes for our nourishment the evangelist’s account of how Jesus sent out the seventy-two disciples ahead of him in pairs to cure the sick and announce the Good News (Luke 10:1–9).
As a Church, we would do well to meditate on each one of Jesus’ instructions to the seventy-two, since every single one of us shares in the mission of proclaiming the Gospel and preparing the harvest of the Lord, according to the nature of our particular vocation. But today we can look at just one instruction. After exhorting them to pray and describing how they are to travel, the Lord says to the seventy-two: “Into whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this household.’” Before all else, these disciples are to be bearers of the Lord’s peace. This gift of peace precedes the works of healing and the explicit proclamation of the Kingdom; peace is also the first gift Jesus would share with the disciples on Easter Sunday.
Since all of us share in some measure in the Church’s evangelizing mission, we too should be bearers of the peace Jesus brings, sharing it in our families, in our workplaces, and among our friends. In doing so, we bring one of the fruits of Jesus’ reign and facilitate the proclamation of the Kingdom. We can ask ourselves, then: do I live in the peace of Christ? Am I a bringer of peace in my various relationships? Let us pray for Christ’s peace to fill our hearts this day, so that we might share that gift with others and so help to make his Kingdom known so that his will might be done on earth as it is in heaven.