From now until Advent the daily gospel selection will be from St. Luke. In today’s passage Jesus inaugurates his public ministry in his home town of Nazareth. He makes his “mission statement” by quoting from the Prophet Isaiah: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. For much of the Church’s history the so-called Great Commission at the end of St. Matthew’s gospel (28:19-20) has served as the de facto mission statement of the Church: make disciples, baptize, teach. Pope Francis is challenging the Church to operate more as Jesus did in his ministry by reaching out to the poor, the captive, the blind, the oppressed — and, like Jesus, he is experiencing opposition.