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From the Pastor's Desk: September 16, 2022
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From the Pastor’s Desk: October 16, 2022
This weekend in our parish we celebrate the Feast of St. Luke the Evangelist – the Patron Saint of our parish. In the context of the 40th Anniversary Celebration of our parish, this significant milestone affords us the opportunity to reflect on our life and to give thanks to Almighty God for every grace we have received over the years. I bow my head and lift in prayers with sincere gratitude to Fr. Luke McLoughlin who laid the foundation of this faith community, and the first pastor – Fr. Edward Rooney whose faithful service and commitment gave a strong bases to establish our St. Luke Parish. I am most grateful for the countless number of parishioners of St. Luke, those who went before us and all those who continue to serve the church and whose faithful dedication brought us to this time and place. For Father Jaison, Deacon Steve, the Missionary Sisters of the Holy Family, Parish Staff and myself, we are humbled by your love, care, dedication and commitment to make St. Luke such a tremendous faith community and make Christ present and visible over the last forty years! I also believe that we have made something far greater than just to build a parish – together we transformed it to make our very own family, our very home. With utmost honor and privilege, we serve this “family” filled with love, generosity of stewardship and devotion as their most beloved sons and daughters, as we look forward each day to know, to serve, and to glorify God through our life of daily service.
This year is also special in another aspect. Our newly ordained Bishop Erik Pohlmeier will share in our celebration and will visit our community for the first time as the shepherd of our local church. Please join me to extend words of welcome to Bishop Pohlmeier and assure our support so together we can build the Kingdom of God.
This Feast Day invites us to reflect on the life of St. Luke. According to tradition, he was a Gentile and the only non-Jewish author of a New Testament book. Luke was a doctor who converted to the faith in about the year 40 C.E. In his writings as the author of both the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, Luke mixes the best of Hebrew and Greek styles of history and records the theological sense of history as he shows how God is the author of all history and the power behind the events narrated in Acts. He invites his Christian audience to imitate the virtuous lives of the Apostles, who in turn are imitators of Christ committed to build up the Kingdom of God. After his conversion, Luke accompanied St. Paul on some of his journeys and was an eyewitness to many of the events he records in the Acts of the Apostles. An ancient tradition says Luke died in Boeotia in Greece at 84 years old, unmarried and “full of the Holy Spirit.” St. Luke is the patron saint of doctors and tradition holds that he painted several pictures (icons) of the Virgin Mary and child Jesus. Luke is often represented by the ox, since he opens his gospel with the priest Zechariah in the Temple, and cattle were among the animals used for Temple sacrifice. St. Luke’s feast day is celebrated on October 18th.
In our celebration of St. Luke, we need to emphasize the clarity of his Gospel message as an invitation and extension of his life for us today. He offers us an incredible example as a faithful worker for the Way of Christ, and a serious challenge: If the feast of a saint is a reminder for us of what one person can do, how do we measure up to this Evangelist? Are we faithful to the Way? Do we have a clear mission and dedication to justice for the poor? Do we proclaim the Kingdom of God with our own lives? Perhaps that is why we need to pray on this Feast Day of our parish for the grace to bring Christ to the world in new and deeper ways of Evangelization.
Saint Luke, Evangelist, pray for us!
With prayers,
Fr. Andy
