Monday, XXX Week of Ordinary Time
(Luke 13:10-17)
The way we talk about each of the four evangelists makes one think that we know well who they were. However, we actually have little hard evidence about the background of any gospel writer. None of them puts his or her name to the work. We are dependent on secondary sources appearing decades later to identify these writers. The author of the third gospel is no exception. Although this gospel begins with a bit of autobiography, only second century witnesses tell us that he is Luke, whom Paul calls the “beloved physician” in his Letter to the Colossians.
It is interesting to note that Luke is critical of physicians as sometimes the other evangelists are but is just as hard on lawyers. Earlier in the gospel Luke tells of another woman with a debilitating hemorrhage whom Jesus heals. Unlike Mark writing of the same incident Luke does not mention, at least as recorded in some ancient manuscripts, that the woman spent a small fortune on doctors. More significantly, however, Luke presents Jesus as a beloved physician of body and soul. In the passage today Jesus gently removes the burden that has had a woman bent over for eighteen years. Not quite so gently but just as remarkably he opens the eyes of the synagogue official, a lawyer of sorts quoting the law, to the fact that his interpretation of the Law is punitive not life-enabling.
With the success of modern medicine to cure disease and extend life many have developed a dualistic attitude toward healing. They rely on doctors to take care of their physical health and prayer to attend to their spiritual welfare. Such an outlook misses the religious belief that God is the author of life. He regularly heals our bodies through medical proficiency. We should pray for medical personnel, not necessarily that they convert to Christianity but that they seek truth and goodness in their work. As a matter of fact, we believe that in the quest for truth and virtue they will likely come across traces of the divine.
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