Today the Church celebrates the liturgical feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist, one of the most fascinating and influential figures of early Christianity. A native of Antioch in Syria, a physician by profession, and a man of refined Hellenistic culture, Luke knew how to place his intellectual and spiritual gifts at the service of the Gospel. Having converted to the faith in Christ, he became the inseparable and faithful companion of the Apostle Paul, sharing with him the hardships of the mission and even imprisonment. To Luke, we owe the writing of the third Gospel, rightly defined as the ‘Gospel of mercy and of women’ for the particular attention he reserves for the marginalized, for sinners, and for the feminine role in salvation, as well as the Acts of the Apostles, a fundamental chronicle of the origins of the Christian community. Christian tradition also attributes to him the merit of having been the first painter of Marian icons, having immortalized in his writings and, symbolically, with colors, the maternal face of the Virgin. Patron saint of doctors and artists, Saint Luke reminds us still today that faith knows how to combine science, beauty, and compassion for one’s neighbor.
