Saint Luke

Feast Day: October 18th

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Luke, born in the first century in Syria.
He was a physician, a painter, a disciple and a missionary. He wrote the one of the four Gospels in the New Testament as well as the Acts of the Apostles. His mission was primarily to advance the teachings of Christ.
It is important to remember Luke was not present during Christ’s ministry, but he learned from the apostles. He was a companion to St. Paul, a missionary who he accompanied on various journeys’ after the Pentecost. Records place St. Luke with St. Paul in Greece during the Greco-Rome period between 60-65 AD. His Gospel preserves the most extensive history of Jesus of all four Gospels. Scholars estimate he died at 84 years old in Greece.
St. Luke has long been acknowledged as the founder of Christian iconography. He is represented by a winged ox – the ox considered to represent the sacrificial aspect of Jesus’ ministry and the wings considered to represent the Gospel traveling throughout the world. He is the patron saint of artists, physicians, butchers, brewers and surgeons. St. Luke continues to be a missionary through his Gospel and his desire to spread the Gospel “to the ends of the earth.”
St. Luke, pray for us.