“Signs of the times” (St. Luke’s: Friday, October 27th, 2017; Rm. 7.18-25; Ps. 119; Lk. 12.54-59)
On the “way”. If you are not feeling tired this morning, you should be ; after all, since October 3 rd , liturgically speaking , we’ve been on a journey. On October 3 rd , Luke’s Gospel told us: “Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem” (9.51). We will arrive in Jerusalem, with Jesus , on November 24 th . (Apparently, if you don’t dilly-dally, you can walk from Galilee, in Northern Israel, to Jerusalem in about 4 days.) So, throughout the months of October and November, all the weekday Gospel readings come from chapters 9-19 of St. Luke’s Gospel. These chapters are called Luke’s “travel narrative”. (Still) waiting. We are journeying with Jesus towards Jerusalem as the Church journeys towards the end of the present liturgical year and towards the season of Advent . We begin every new liturgical year in a state of expectancy, celebrating Jesus’ first advent (his birth) and anticipating his second advent (return in glory). At the time of Jesus, God’s people had been in