St. Luke the Apostle and Evangelist (source)
The Beloved Physician
“Embrace Luke, the beloved physician”
(Col. 4:14)
Today, my beloved, is a feast and
celebration. St. Luke celebrates, one of the stars which enlightens
the heaven of our holy Church.
Who was St. Luke? It is not sufficient
to hear the name and to celebrate the memory of a Saint. We must know
his life, and above all, imitate his virtues. As the holy Chrysostom
said: “To celebrate a Saint is to imitate the Saint.” Because of
this, let us say a few words about this Saint.
Luke! And his name alone reveals
something, it has meaning. The word “Luke”, as philologists say,
comes from the Latin root (lux) which means “light”. From this
are derived other words as well. For example, “Lyceum” [corresponding to high school in modern Greece], meaning
the school that enlightens, and woe if this school does not enlighten
but darkens. Lyceum=the school that enlightens, and Luke=enlightened,
radiant. He, of course, was not enlightened from the start, for
initially he was an idolater. He was born when everyone worshiped
idols and made them gods. He was a Greek by lineage. His homeland was
Antioch, that great center of Hellenism in the East. That was his
life before Christ, until he believed.
His calling was to be a physician
(there was at that time a great medical school in Tyre). Furthermore,
according to tradition, he had the talent of drawing pictures.
Studying medicine, he found himself in Thebes of Viotia, and heard
the Apostle Paul, came to know him, believed in Christ, was baptized
a Christian, and therefore named Luke—enlightened.
From then on he followed the Apostle
Paul. The life of Paul, however, was not like the life of today's
priests and bishops, as we partake of silence and general comfort. It
was a hard life, with poverty, trials, persecutions, shipwrecks,
martyrdom, the cross. How many times was he not cast out, seized,
flogged, imprisoned, and stoned (by Judeans and idolaters and Roman
emperors)? And ultimately he was beheaded in Rome.
Throughout all of these situations,
Luke did not abandon Paul. He remained near him, near him through
these events, near him through his afflictions, near him through all
the trials, until the end of his life. Among the fellow workers of
Paul, Luke takes the greatest place, of whom he writes: “Luke, the
beloved physician” (Col. 4:14). He names him “physician”,
because he must have been useful to him many times, when the Apostle
Paul was sick and had need of medical care.
Luke did not see Christ with his eyes,
but he heard of the Lord from those who were “witnesses and
servants” of the apostolic preaching (Luke 1:2), and especially
from the Apostle Paul. This made a great impression on him, such that
he could give a faithful representation of the Lord, and of the
apostles and the life of the first Church. He believed deeply, and
that which he believed, he preached. And as the Apostle Paul
completed his path, Luke fled from Rome. He began to travel and to
preach the Gospel of Christ. He circled throughout all of Greece, and
finally, he returned to Thebes, where, according to a tradition, he
became bishop, and there peacefully gave up his holy soul at the age
of 80.
He preached with his tongue, he
preached with his life and his example, he preached with his
miracles. He will forever preach, however, with his God-inspired writings,
and especially his Gospel. Whoever reads the Gospel according to
Luke, thinks that he is watching the life of Jesus Christ like a
movie. The Gospel of Luke is the sweetest Gospel. It is characterized
as the Gospel of love, of forgiveness, of mercy, the Gospel of the
compassion of God. One of these is the following:
In the Gospel of Luke is found the
story of a sinful woman. She had worked orgies. She knew many men and
was corrupted. The supposedly holy people in Israel, the Scribes and
Pharisees, cut off communion with her, did not approach her, nor even
told her a good morning. This woman one day went to Christ. He did
not cast her out. He let her be, and she approached Him, knelt,
sprinkled His feet with her tears and with her myrrh, and using her
hair has a towel, wiped the spotless feet of the Lord. But because
Christ accepted her actions, the others were scandalized. “Oh my,
what is she doing?!” they said, “If he were a prophet, he would
know who is touching him...” And then Christ said a great saying,
which is impossible to measure, and which strikes me so deeply.
Listen to what He says: “Her sins, which are many, are forgiven,
for she loved much.” (Luke 7:47) In other words, the Scribes and
Pharisees did not love Him, the “Learned” of that age did not
love Him, the Romans did not love Him. This wretched woman loved Him,
and she shed bitter tears of repentance. She sensed the redemption
which Christ grants.
The Gospel of Luke is the Gospel of
Joy. It begins from the Annunciation of the Theotokos, with the
greeting of Gabriel: “Rejoice, O Full-of-Grace...” (Luke 1:28),
and proceeds with the Nativity of Christ, and the joyous angelic
message: “Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy...” (Luke
2:10), and ends again with the joy of the Apostles when they saw
Christ ascending to the heavens: “And they, having worshiped Him,
returned to Jerusalem with great joy” (Luke 24:52). The Gospel is
joy. There is no other true joy anywhere. Joy is Christ. Whoever is
tried, approaches, and believes like Luke did, he will see that his
sorrow becomes joy, and his darkness, light.
All of us, beloved, are sick—not as
much bodily as spiritually—and all of us have need of healing.
Because of this, Christ founded His Church, for it to be a hospital
for all men. He Himself is “The Physician of our Souls and Bodies”
(Divine Liturgy), and He offers healing, medicine and therapy. His
fellow workers in this healing work are the chosen men that He
called, the Holy Apostles, the Holy Fathers, and the Clergy of today.
Luke was a physician of bodies, who
placed his scientific knowledge towards the service of every sick
person in pain. However, he himself had need of a physician, the
Physician of the Soul. And he found the Physician. He found him in
the person of the Apostle Paul, who led him to the hospital of the
Church. But the Apostle Paul, before he could offer spiritual healing
to Luke, he himself had needed this, which he received walking on the
road to Damascus, from our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, Who is the
Physician of physicians. In other words, the Apostle Paul and the
Evangelist Luke, in the Church of Christ, approached as sick men, and
having been healed, with the grace of the Lord, became physicians of
the others.
On the feast of the holy physician
Luke, I now direct this towards those who share his art.
My beloved physicians, nurses, and all
those who serve the sick in any way! No one dishonors the worth of
your sacrifice. Everyone knows this and confesses this. But I want to
remind you that man is not only a body, he is also a soul. And when
you offer healing and therapy to others' bodies, know that you also
need healing of your souls. You have a soul that is immortal and
beyond all worth; take care of it. You behold the reality daily that
this life ends. Work towards your eternal healing. Imitate in this
way your protector, St. Luke. Approach with faith the Physician of
physicians, and the healer of the whole human existence.
I pray that our Lord Jesus Christ,
through the intercessions of the Evangelist Luke, may always be with
you. Amen.
+Bishop Avgoustinos (Metropolitan Augustine Kantiotes of Florina, of blessed memory)
Recorded homily which took place in the
Church of the Evangelist Luke in the Hospital of Florina
(10/18/1985). (amateur translation of text from source)
Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us! Amen!
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