July 27, 2010

A Shepherd's Message

By Daniel Cardinal DiNardo

During the course of this liturgical year, the Church is proclaiming the Gospel of St. Luke on most Sundays.  It was the poet Dante who called that text the “Gospel of the Lord’s loving kindness.”  Dante was a poet, but he had a discerning theological eye.  He recognized, as have many others, the remarkable portrait of Jesus Christ that emerges from the pages of St. Luke.  Though all the Gospels are divinely inspired and record for us the words and deeds of Jesus Christ – most especially His Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension – each author writes freely and in his own way and each evangelist highlights certain details about the Lord and His work.  We have four Gospel accounts, not just one, and each account helps us to deepen our love for the Lord, even as it gives us intense catechetical and spiritual formation.  It has been said that St. Luke was a physician and a painter.  Whatever the basis for these traditions in the early Church, it is certainly true that St. Luke is a wonderful painter with words.  His Greek is the best in the New Testament.

Along with St. Matthew, St. Luke gives us a two-chapter introduction to his Gospel as he writes of the conception and birth of Jesus Christ.  It is from him that we receive the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary, the travel to Bethlehem by Mary and Joseph for the census, the birth of Christ in a stable, the message of the angels to the shepherds, the presentation of Christ in the temple when He is 40 days old, and His being lost and then found in the temple 12 years later.  These narratives provide us a beautiful frame, a kind of gospel within the Gospel, since they anticipate many of the themes that St. Luke recounts about the Lord during his public life, including the importance of John the Baptist.  Amidst the remarkable details provided to us, St. Luke is proclaiming that Jesus Christ is already “God With Us” in His conception, birth, naming and presentation in the temple.  In His human nature, even before He can speak, He is already showing the loving plan of salvation that the Father has for human beings, the mercy that the “Dayspring from on High” will grant to all those desiring God’s saving help.  St. Luke also gives us in these chapters a most profound yet simple portrait of the Virgin Mary, who always is “keeping all these things in her heart” as she magnifies the Lord.

In the public life of Jesus, St. Luke records many of the same details as St. Matthew and St. Mark. In fact, some commentators think that he had a copy of the Gospel of St. Mark in front of him as he wrote his text.  But there are some events and teachings that only St. Luke mentions.  All the Gospels record the fact that Jesus told parables, those magnificent short stories with a “punch” or lesson in each one.  St. Luke remembers some parables that are only in his Gospel; these are frequently narratives of mercy.  For example, St. Luke alone records the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son.  In the prior case, a lawyer’s question about the Greatest Commandment turns first to a quotation from the Book of Deuteronomy about loving the Lord God with heart, soul mind and strength and then adding a comet’s tail – love your neighbor as yourself.  The arrogant response of the lawyer (“Who is my neighbor?”) leads to the story of the Good Samaritan with its conclusion being a question to the lawyer.  “Who was neighbor to the man who fell among robbers?”  The lawyer wanted to know who was good enough to be his neighbor.  Jesus turns the question around and asks to whom you/we are going to be a neighbor.  It is one of the most radical parables in the Gospels, one heightened by its biting conclusion, yet it is stated and remembered by St. Luke as a most fitting and beautiful invitation for each of us to imitate God’s loving kindness to us by being neighbor to ANYONE in need.  The parable of the Prodigal Son and the loving father outlines a similar understanding of divine compassion and human imitation of such compassion.  It might also be noted that St. Luke alone remembers the extraordinarily poignant scene of the Good Thief at the Cross, who acknowledges Jesus and His Kingdom and is promised paradise that day!  Examples of Jesus’ loving kindness abound in this Gospel.

St. Luke’s Gospel is also sensitive to the table fellowship of Jesus with – almost everyone.  He dines with saints and sinners, with Pharisees and tax collectors; a meal with Jesus, though, always has some surprises because it is at table with Him that each disciple or would-be disciple learns some important lessons about the Kingdom of God.  Among my favorites is the dinner where Jesus clinches a parable by saying: “Little is forgiven the one whose love is small!” (Luke 7). Jesus goes to many dinners in the Gospel of St. Luke and the theme of dining and being fed, already hinted at in His birth in a stable, reaches its climax at the Last Supper when such fellowship is transformed into the depth of the account of the Holy Eucharist.  Jesus Christ gives of Himself even to death and will abide with us always through His Body and Blood in the Eucharist.  On the afternoon of Easter Sunday, near the close of his Gospel, St. Luke records an experience of two disciples on the road to Emmaus who encounter a stranger seemingly oblivious to what has happened the prior three days.  But the stranger explains the necessity of the Passion of the Messiah and then, having been invited to dine with the disciples, takes the bread, blesses and breaks and distributes it to them.  Then their eyes are opened and they recognize that it is the risen Lord.  They know him in the Scriptures and in the breaking of the bread, the Eucharist.  What a powerful incident  and how it enables our own hearts to burn with love as Jesus opens for us each Sunday the Word and then draws us to intimacy by receiving His Body and Blood.  How Eucharistic the Gospel of St. Luke is!

There is also another detail I would like to mention about this special Gospel.  At Chapter 9: 51, St. Luke tells us that Jesus began his journey to Jerusalem and His passover to death and life there.  He repeats that remark at least 10 times more until the entry of Christ into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday (Chapter 19).  This repetition is not about the physical geography of Palestine but it is a reminder of the geography of discipleship contained in these 10 magnificent chapters, the words and deeds of Jesus about the cross, the cost of discipleship, the unity needed among disciples, the work of Gospel proclamation, and the social demands and responsibilities of all those who “walk with Jesus to Jerusalem.”  These chapters make clear that Christ does not want fellow travelers but committed disciples, not spectators but engaged workers for the Kingdom of God, called and forgiven, loved and challenged to take up the Cross.

We have so much to be grateful for in reading and hearing proclaimed the great Gospel of St. Luke this year.  May each Sunday Liturgy engage your mind and affections, keep your heart burning to know and love the Lord more fully, push you into greater action for the Lord and His Church, and allow you to experience, like the disciples, intimacy with Jesus Christ in the breaking of the bread in the Eucharist.

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