Today October 18

Today is the feast day of St. Luke, evangelist (First century). Almost all we know of him comes directly from the New Testament. He was a Gentile, he was from Antioch, he was a physician, he was almost certainly a Greek. He was with Paul a lot, definitely in not only his first but also his second imprisonment in Rome. He wrote very good Greek and that very eloquently, and he tried diligently to be accurate, going back to the sources. Harnack "very solidly demonstrated that Luke the physician was the author both of the third gospel and the whole of the Acts of the Apostles" - Butler's Lives, despite attempts to dispute this.

He was almost certainly not one of the 72, although some still cling to that old idea. He came to the faith after the Resurrection and was a disciple of the apostles and not of the Lord.

I found it interesting that "many had written accounts of the things that had happened . . . from the beginning" - Butler's Lives. And that implies more than just the other two synoptics. But of all the "many", only Matthew, Mark and Luke, and later John, were chosen as canonical. There evidently was something special about these. I believe that something was holy inspiration.

His Greek was very good; he was well-educated; he has a good grasp of geography, history and medical matters. His text filled an important niche: more literary than Mark's memoirs, and less directly addressed to the Jews than Matthew's, Luke's gospel reached the many educated pagans interested in the life of Christ. And Luke put it -- as well as an account of the trials and travels of the early Christians, especially Paul -- all together into a cohesive whole. And through it all he stresses our Lord's mercy. To him alone we owe the stories of the good Samaritan, the repentant thief and the prodigal son. And of course, all five of the joyful mysteries of the Rosary: the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Birth of Jesus (also covered in Matthew), the Presentation and the Finding in the Temple. Did he actually talk to Our Lady? He doesn't say, but it's possible. She was in the care of St. John, and Luke and John met. Luke was baptized in the early forties and Our Lady would have been no more than 70. There's no real reason he couldn't have interviewed her. We'll never know, before we get to heaven. But we have cause to be grateful to him for writing as he did. St. Luke, pray for us.