Fr Peter Helman (10.18.21)
Dear friend,
Today the Church commemorates the Feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist, who we know from the writings of Saint Paul to have been for a time his companion and fellow worker on his second missionary journey (2 Tim. 4:10-11).
Luke was a native of Syrian Antioch and a physician trained in the Greek medical arts. Although Luke nowhere indicates in his writings that he was among those who witnessed Christ’s ministry first-hand, Tradition holds two wonderful truths: first, that Luke was one of the Seventy Apostles sent by the Lord with the others to proclaim the Kingdom of God throughout the towns and villages of Israel (Luke 10:1-3); and second, that it was in fact Luke who was with Cleopas on the road to Emmaus when the risen Lord appeared to them as they walked (Luke 24:13-35).
Luke wrote his Gospel from Jerusalem, presumably with the guidance of Paul, in the years 62-63 CE, shortly after returning from their missionary journey. It is only in his Gospel that we find the accounts of the Annunciation and Blessed Mary’s Visitation to Elizabeth, the words of the Magnificat, and the Presentation of the infant Jesus in the temple. Luke frames his account of all that Jesus did and taught in view of Christ’s compassion for sinners, for outcasts and the downtrodden, and for the poor and infirm. The role of women in Christ’s ministry features more prominently in Luke than in the other Gospels.
Luke also wrote the Acts of the Apostles, originally a continuation of his Gospel and the second part of the same book, both of which he addressed to a certain Theophilus, or “Lover of God.” The Book of Acts tells of the ministries of the early Apostles after Christ’s Ascension and the spread of the Gospel throughout the Mediterranean world after the coming of the Holy Spirit.
After Paul and Peter were martyred in Rome by the Emperor Nero in 64 CE, Luke left Rome to preach the Gospel in Greece, Libya, and Egypt. He was then martyred in Thebes at the age of 84.
Today we ask Blessed Luke the Evangelist to pray for us, so his prayers might obtain for us both healing and pardon.
Faithfully yours,
Fr. Peter
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A HYMN FROM THE SARUM MISSAL SUNG ON THE FEAST OF SAINT LUKE
To Christ your voices raise
in glorifying praise,
ye reverential choir;
who the evangelists,
truth’s earnest dogmatists,
did with grace inspire:
who, as him doth beseem,
who by the lightning’s gleam
unto the world gives light;
By these whom he chose out
he heresies doth rout,
and schisms puts to flight.
These are the fountains four
from whence the rivers pour
o’re hill and glad to reach;
From paradise they spring,
the world illumining
with undivided speech.
Four living creatures show
these four to us below,
so holy vision says:
Each differing in form,
in action uniform,
before the prophet’s gaze.
With wings of fashion fair,
poised o’er the earth in air,
forth with their wheels they go;
Calm and composed of mane,
and full of eyes, and keen
the Word of God to show.
In these we may behold
the twice two rings of gold,
which Israel’s ark did bear;
Their doctrine’s wholesome sound,
Christ’s Church wherever found,
its keeper, doth declare.
On such a car conveyed,
the queen of Sheba paid
her court to Solomon;
These the Lamb’s chariots are,
who, for the love he bare
towards us, to death was done.
Christ is the head and end,
who all doth comprehend
in these four gospels found;
Upon their teaching staid,
their instrumental aid,
the Church her faith doth ground.
At their blest intercessions
may Christ from all transgressions
deliver us through grace;
And by the word they teach,
direct us till we reach
in heaven a resting-place