We are all far too confident in our own abilities…Jesus will take what he has given to you and magnify it…If you let him

Today at Holy Mass the universal Church commemorates the Feast Day of St Luke, the beloved physician and author of one of the four gospels…Luke was not a author by profession, he earned his living by being a doctor…Yet he is remembered to this day roughly 2000 years after his death for his service to Christ…Luke never met Jesus in person, he was a peer of St Paul therefore his gospel was not a first hand account of the life of Christ……. Yet Jesus’s life made a deep and lasting impression upon Luke….How about you?…..Each of us are in this world and we all have responsibilities, which require us to labor for our families….However, what we do to make a living may not necessarily be what our “true calling” is…..Work was made for man and we must toil for our daily bread…But the bread we eat is not the bread of life…Each of the Baptized, that means YOU, has been called by God to a particular service…As St Paul rightly put it in Scripture…”And he gave some as apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers, to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ”……Like St Luke, who the Church honors today, made his living by being a doctor but he is remembered for what he did in his service to and for the Lord….What will you be remembered for?…..What gift has the Lord given you and how are you using that gift?

“Your friends make known, O Lord, the glorious splendor of your Kingdom”

From the development of a deep interior life through daily prayer, weekly fasting and living the Sacramental life each of us will find our calling…..Many Catholics approach their service for the Lord putting the “cart before the horse”…..Please allow me to explain…..They look to serve God before they develop a deep interior life….If we first pray, our work will organically flow from our interior life…Mother Teresa once told a great story….She was speaking to a group of priests about the importance of making a daily Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament…And this priest says to her…”Mother I am the pastor of two parishes…I run a school as well and have so much to do…I have no time to make a Holy Hour each day….This was Mother Teresa’s response….”You are a very important man…You have been given so many responsibilities….You should make two Holy Hours each day!”…..You see…This priest got it wrong…He put the “cart before the horse”…First we pray, go to confession regularly, receive the Eucharist in the state of grace…And then God will not only show you what you are to do for him but empower you to do it……We are all far too confident in our own abilities…Jesus will take what he has given to you and magnify it…If you let him

“This is how it is with the kingdom of God; it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how. Of its own accord the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once, for the harvest has come.”

Today in the gospel from Mass….St Luke tells us…..”The Lord Jesus appointed seventy-two disciples whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit. He said to them, "The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest”…Just as Jesus sent out his friends to “labor in the fields of the world” for the salvation of souls…He sends us out too!…But before you set out, first pray, go to confession with a priest, and receive the Blessed Sacrament in the state of grace….Then what you do will have power and when you speak you will speak with authority…..”Do not worry beforehand about what you are to say. But say whatever will be given to you at that hour. For it will not be you who are speaking but the Holy Spirit”…….Each of us has something to do….As I was once told by a wise and holy nun….”Joe, don’t think…..Pray and do!”…That is the correct order……Pray & do!

We are all far too confident in our own abilities…Jesus will take what he has given to you and magnify it…If you let him