Who was St. Luke the Evangelist

This Sunday, October 18th we celebrate the feast of St. Luke the Evangelist, and since it falls on Sunday we use the Mass in his honor. One of the common symbols of St. Luke is the Ox, and this is why we have switched our parish festival to Oxtoberfest. Since we are celebrating the feast of our namesake, I thought that it would be good to write about him. The ox comes from the prophet Ezekiel who has a vision about a creature with four faces that of an ox, that of a man, that of an eagle, and that of a lion. The ox is a symbol because this was an animal that was used for sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins and St. Luke begins his Gospel with the sacrifice of Zacharias. First and foremost, we know that he was the writer of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, we say writer and not author because the author of all of scripture is God, humans only write them with the inspiration of God. Another reason for the ox is that St. Luke’s Gospel has a heavy focus on the mercy and forgiveness of God. We have St. Luke to thank for the story of the Prodigal Son and the woman who washes the feet of Jesus with her tears.

We also know that he was highly educated, because he was a physician, and we know this from a couple of different sources, first from St. Paul who calls him the “the beloved physician” and second from Church historians like Eusebius, St. Jerome, St. Irenaeus who all refer to St. Luke as a physician. There is also a discussion about where St. Luke came from, most would claim the he was Greek and was a Gentile who became a disciple of Christ. There is evidence because he is not listed when Paul mentions in the Letter to the Colossians those who were “of the circumcision” which would mean the Jewish people, but he is mentioned later along with someone called Demas. There is also a theory that St. Luke was a slave. We also know that St. Luke joined St. Paul in many of his journeys but not always. St. Luke first met up with St. Paul in Troas and traveled with him for quite a while then were apart for about seven years when they traveled again through Caesarea and Jerusalem. He was most likely with St. Paul when he was arrested and thrown in prison in Rome, even though it does not seem that he was in prison with him.

St. Luke also is one that has a special connection with the Blessed Mother, because he was the only one who has the account of the Annunciation as well as the Magnificat prayer. He was also one who put the account of the Presentation in the temple, as well as the finding in the temple. He is also the one that we have to thank for the first part of the Hail Mary prayer which comes from the Annunciation and from the Visitation.

There are some conflicting stories of St. Luke’s death, but most say that he was martyred around the year 84, and his relics are in the Basilica di Santa Guistina in Padua, Italy.