Sunday, December 5, 2021

We're at C. Happy New Year! We are now in Advent, and that means we have begun a new liturgical year. Hurrah!!  How is this Liturgical Year different than last Liturgical Year? I’m glad you asked, because we have now entered Year C. This does not mean that we got a worse grade going from Year B to Year C, it’s just how (unimaginatively) the years are labeled.  The good news is that we start a new year of liturgical readings, and our Gospels will largely come from the Gospel of Luke. Last year (hopefully you noticed) the Gospels were mostly from Mark.

Now Mark’s Gospel is very nice (even though it’s known as “The Sorrowful Gospel”) but far and away most Catholics prefer the Gospel of Luke. First of all because Luke tells us a lot more about Mary than the other three Gospels combined, and let’s face it, Catholics love Mary. So Mary’s great hymn of praise, the Magnificat, is found in Luke.

 (Lk 1:46-55). We learn of the Annunciation by the Archangel Gabriel to Mary only in Luke (Lk 1:26-38). It’s only in Luke’s second volume, The Acts of the Apostles, that we learn of Mary gathering with the Apostles at Pentecost (Acts 1:14). 

It’s also only in Luke that we hear the parables of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan, and that alone makes me glad that we have Luke’s Gospel.

Luke, we think, must have been writing to a community with some economic means, because Luke includes a lot more about money and its use than any other Gospel. And Luke has a lot of interest in Jesus’ healings, leading to the traditional view that Luke was a physician.

For these and other reasons, Luke is pretty popular among Catholics. And if you are one of the people who like Luke the best, this new liturgical year is for you. 

So Year C is in no way lower or deficient compared to Years A and B.

Happy Liturgical New Year!

St. Luke, Evangelist

Icon from Saint Luke’s Wallsend in
New South Wales, Australia

Want to learn more about St. Luke? While you can always explore the internet, find him in Butler's Lives of the Saints, or any other compendium, you might also ask our very own Deacon John de la Garza who shared his long devotion to the saint in a homily at a recent 5:30 Mass. On his recommendation, I listened to the audiobook of Taylor Caldwell's Dear & Glorious Physician. Her prose style steps back in time to when folks luxuriated into a long novel rather than losing a weekend to binge-watching. 

~ an offering from the editorial desk