Friday in the 24th Week of Ordinary Time, September 18, 2020

Luke 8:1-3

Jesus journeyed from one town and village to another, preaching and proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God. Accompanying him were the Twelve and some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, Susanna, and many others who provided for them out of their resources.  

During the three years of his public life, the Lord Jesus primarily preached the repentance of sins and the coming of the kingdom of heaven “from one town and village to another” within an area of less than forty miles long by less than thirty miles wide.  Between one and two hundred towns of any size existed there in Galilee at that time, with many more villages and hamlets, some inhabited by as few as fifty people.  Possibly one hundred thousand people lived in the region.  It is moving to think of the Lord limiting himself to this tiny corner of the world, away from the big cities such as Rome and Alexandria, going to the little out-of-the-way places to hunt for his lost sheep, if only to find one of them in any given village.  He does this methodically and thoroughly, as is clear from his sending his seventy-two disciples in pairs to all the towns and villages he would visit, teaching the Apostles how they are to work when they receive the Holy Spirit.

We catch some of the day-to-day routine of the Lord’s work in the verses from today’s Gospel reading.  The writers of the Gospels tell us of the most significant encounters, words, and miracles, but much of the work the Lord did could be summed up just as St. Luke puts it: “Jesus journeyed from one town and village to another, preaching and proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God.”  He would have preached the same message in the various places where he stopped, healed the people who came to him for healing, and then moved on to the next town.  Jesus and his Apostles and the women who assisted them would have spent a lot of time walking in the countryside, on roads when there were roads.  Jesus would have led the way with Peter, James, and John close by, then the other Apostles and maybe some followers who had gravitated to him, and then the women.  Luke gives us the names of a few of the women, and mentions that Jesus had healed them in some way: “Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, [and] Susanna.”  He also tells us that there were “many others” who “provided for them out of their resources.”  The Greek word translated here as “resources” means, more specifically, their “goods”, “property”, and “possessions”.  We know from the other Gospels that the mother of the sons of Zebedee was one of these, as well as the mother of the Apostle James the Lesser.  Not all would have had the “resources” of the steward of Herod Antipas at their disposal, but each did or gave what she could.  Their quiet dedication would prove more resilient than that even of the Apostles, for some of them were on Cavalry with the Lord and his Mother, marked where the Body of the Lord was buried, and came early on Easter Sunday to provide the anointing which they could not do as the sun set on Good Friday evening.  According to the Gospels, to these humble servants Jesus appeared before he appeared to anyone else. 

The tenacity of the faith of these holy women gives the good example that whoever we are, we do the work of the Lord wherever he goes, offering what we can for him out of our talents, abilities, and wealth, through each day.