Coffee With God

Reflection: Luke 10:1-9

According to a pious tradition, St. Luke is thought to have painted the image of Mary, the Virgin Mother. But the real portrait that Luke draws of the Blessed Mother is the one that emerges from the pages of his Gospel. In those familiar scenes of the Annunciation, the Visitation and her Magnificat, the Nativity, the Presentation in the Temple, life in the home of Nazareth, Jesus being lost in the temple, and the Pentecost, Luke introduces us to Mary’s life in faith, helping us to understand her role in God’s divine plan of salvation. Luke the painter has done his creation in two huge canvases – the first speaks of the Life and Mission of Jesus in the Gospel and the second spoke about the life and mission of the early Church. Or it can also be considered as reports of the works of Jesus in his Gospel and the work of the Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles. In the Gospel today, Jesus sends all his disciples, Luke says there were 70 of them (or 72 in some versions). Why is this number 70? The rabbis of Israel taught that the people of God – Israel was surrounded by 70 wolves – referring to the numerous pagan religious groups that disregarded the Jewish customs, traditions and practices. It is into the midst of these wolves or pagans that Jesus sends his disciples, and therefore, they are 70 in numbers The Mission of Jesus is to build his Church and this cannot be done alone. Church is essentially a community and building this community is a collective responsibility. Hence, the disciples are sent out in pairs to support and complement each other in the mission. Carrying out the mission of Jesus is no easy task. It requires God’s blessings and hence, the first instruction of Jesus to his ambassadors is to be consistent in prayer to the God of the harvest, that they become efficient labourers. Pay attention to this aspect of prayer: Prayer to the Lord of the harvest is not intended to persuade God to send more laborers into His harvest but is intended to transform the disciple into an apostle. Prayer gives him balance, good disposition, inner peace; frees him from pride, presumption. It enables him to overcome opposition, disappointments, and failures; it reveals to him, moment by moment, the will of the “Lord of the harvest.” A disciple must resist the temptations to depend on material resources while accepting the mission of Christ. All the resources that he/she requires is to trust in God’s providence.