St Luke

Evangelist (-c. 74)

Saint of the day October 18

St Luke was a native of Antioch, the capital of Syria. A physician by profession (cfr. Col 4:14), he was consulted by St Paul during an illness on his 2nd great missionary journey, and converted by him to the faith. Himself a Gentile, he thenceforth associated himself with the great Apostle of the Gentiles, and while Paul was preaching in Thessalonica, Athens and Corinth, and during his 3-year stay at Ephesus, Luke carried on the work of Evangelization in Philippi. He returned with Paul to Jerusalem, and visited him frequently during his imprisonment at Caesarea; it was probably at that time that Luke wrote his extensive Gospel which St Jerome and St John Chrysostom called St Paul’s Gospel. He is rightly said to have been “illumined by St Paul”, for he recorded and interpreted with the utmost fidelity the oral preaching and catechizing of the great missionary.

Matthew’s Aramaic account was already widely circulated, and Luke doubtless also had Mark’s Gospel before him as he wrote. Luke’s Gospel is particularly valuable for the stress it lays on Christian purity, poverty and joyousness, and for the graphic descriptions of the Annunciation, the Visitation, the birth and early life of Jesus. These Luke had painstakingly collected over a period of time from those “who from the beginning had been eye witnesses,” probably from Mary, too. He is also credited with having painted a portrait of the Virgin Mary.

Being highly educated, Luke could write in polished, elegant (heck, and he related the events to contemporary history. In his endeavour to furnish an historical background for the faith of i lie educated Greek converts of the young Church, he particularly stressed the fact that God’s mercy and forgiveness extended universally both to the Jews and the Gentiles who believed in him. Thus, the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son, for instance, appear only in his Gospel.

During Paul’s two years’ imprisonment in Rome, Luke was again at his side, and during that time set down the history of the Church in the Acts of the Apostles. After Paul’s martyrdom Luke is thought to have gone to Dalmatia (Yugoslavia) and to have died in Boeotia, Greece, probably martyred. His relics were transferred to Constantinople in c.360.

St Luke is the Patron of physicians, artists, brewers, butchers, glass-workers and notaries.