Today is the feast day of St. Luke, undisputed author of the third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. Who was St. Luke?
Biography
Luke was a Greek physician who wrote the story of Jesus from the perspective of a Greek, in order to persuade Greeks and Romans to begin to follow “the Way” of Jesus. He most likely was a member of the Christian community in Antioch. As a new convert, he accompanied St. Paul on his second missionary journey, the one that moved Christianity into Europe.
Luke settled in Philippi, to build the Christian community there. Then he joined Paul on his third missionary journey, the one with the shipwreck. He accompanied Paul to Rome and remained with him during his imprisonment. Paul mentions Luke three times in his own writings—in Colossians, in 2 Timothy (which we see today), and in Philemon.
Once Paul and Peter were martyred in Rome in 66 AD, Luke returned to Greece, where he is believed to have died at the age of 84. Eventually various legends developed about Luke, including that he was martyred, that he was one of the 72 disciples Jesus sent out (hence the Gospel for today), and that he was one of the disciples whom Jesus found on the road to Emmaus (described in Luke 24). There is also a story that Luke painted a picture of the Blessed Virgin; that is why he is considered the patron saint of artists.
These legends surfaced many years after St. Luke’s death. That doesn’t stop them from being true, but it leads scholars to put them in a category separate from other verified information about his work with St. Paul.
Deeper St. Luke
Those are the outlines, but who was St. Luke? It seems to me we can know a lot about him from his writing.
Luke may or may not have painted a picture of the Blessed Virgin with paints, but he painted beautiful word pictures of her in Luke 1 and 2. He surely visited with her and got her to tell him those memories she had “kept in her heart” all those years. In many ways Luke was the “grandfather” of the rosary. His word pictures of the Annunciation, the Visitation to Elizabeth, the Birth of Jesus, the Presentation, and Finding Jesus in the Temple enable us now, 2000 years later, to picture those events as we pray. All the Joyful Mysteries are found in Luke. Stories for the other Mysteries depend on all the Gospels and mariology, but still, if you read the stories in Luke, you will likely find his wording is often what feeds your ability to picture the events, to be present in them as you pray.
Luke, as an author, was meticulous with his facts. He paints word pictures because he gives us details. Archeologists have verified many details in Luke’s accounts of the spread of Christianity in Acts. He most likely was not present for any of Jesus’ teaching, healing, or parables, nor his passion and resurrection. Yet Luke makes all those events exquisitely clear. It seems safe to believe that the same careful “checking out his stories” was true for what Luke wrote in his Gospel.
St. Peter is said to have carried Christianity to Antioch (in Turkey today) around 37 AD, after Stephen’s martyrdom. Luke may have encountered Christianity then. Luke’s stories of the disciples have a realness that may well have come from Peter’s preaching. We know Paul evangelized Luke and claimed him as his companion. Luke notes in Acts that Paul came to Antioch on his first missionary journey. It was in Antioch that Jews and Greeks began to form one body; it was in Antioch this new group was first called “Christians.” This is the Christian community in which Luke most likely found his faith, was baptized, and began to be a “second tier apostle.” It was a strong community, yet it was also a pioneer community in which the Holy Spirit had many things to work out. Luke was likely in the middle of all of it.
Today’s Gospel: Sending Out the 72
While it is unlikely that St. Luke was historically a member of the 72 Disciples in today’s Gospel, in actual practice he was very much a part of that second tier of Jesus’ missionaries. Luke did exactly what Jesus told the 72 to do:
Go on your way;
behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves.
Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals;
and greet no one along the way.
Into whatever house you enter,
first say, ‘Peace to this household.’
If a peaceful person lives there,
your peace will rest on him;
but if not, it will return to you.
Stay in the same house and eat and drink what is offered to you,
for the laborer deserves payment.
Do not move about from one house to another.
Whatever town you enter and they welcome you,
eat what is set before you,
cure the sick in it and say to them,
‘The Kingdom of God is at hand for you.’”
Luke was a disciple who became an apostle in the sense that he was “one who was sent.” He remained a physician and most likely used his healing capacity to foster the Gospel. His compassion and mercy run all through his writings. His is the Gospel of mercy and the Gospel often quoted today when we look at Catholic Social Teaching. Several of our favorite parables (the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son) only appear in Luke. The way Luke presents the story of Jesus, it is easy to see how “God is love,” and that that love is meant to extend to all peoples.
Application
How does Luke’s feast and missionary spirit fill me today? I want to take from Luke a conscientiousness to research carefully. I want to learn how to tell a story simply, yet with built in word pictures. I want to communicate God’s mercy—for all people.
But more, I want to do what I think Luke had to have done to write what he wrote: I want to accompany people, meeting them where they are, listening to them to get to know them, then sharing the wonderful message of Jesus which is as true and as needed today as in the first century: “The Kingdom of God is at hand FOR YOU.”
Prayer:
St. Luke, be a guide for me, for all of us who are second tier apostles: always laity, always proclaiming the Kingdom as we go about our daily lives and work, yet also sent to proclaim the Kingdom. Thank you, Lord, for raising up St. Luke to be an evangelist, for the wonderful writing he did, and the wonderful model of the practice of the kingdom of God he taught us to do. Amen.
