St. Luke is one of the first prominent Gentiles in early Christianity. Despite his fame as the author of one of the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, we know almost nothing of his life.

His contemporaries referred to his training as a physician, and we know that he traveled with Paul throughout the latter’s ministry, remaining with him in his final imprisonment. We do not know how Luke first learned about Jesus, nor when he converted to Christianity. We do not even know how he died, though most traditions teach that he lived to an old age and that he is not counted among the Church’s martyrs.

Despite the dearth of details surrounding his life, we can learn much about this great saint through his recording of Christ’s life and ministry. Each of the four Gospels tells us something about the influence on the author, and the audience to whom they are writing. Luke records many of the same events found in the other two synoptic Gospels, Mark and Matthew, but his emphasis is different, reflecting his Gentile upbringing.

As Luke wrote, he knew that by his pen he must serve the Holy Spirit’s mission to bring together Jews and Gentiles. Despite their long exiles and many sufferings, the Jews had always been known as the chosen Children of God, set apart from the Gentiles. Jesus himself was a Jew. He knew the old laws and recited the Jewish Scriptures. For the Gentiles of that era, it would have seemed almost impossible that the Christian message of salvation could have even applied to them.

Luke stood in the gap between the communities he grew up among and the Christians he later walked with. Through his writing, Luke paints a new picture for his Gentile brethren. Through him, the Holy Spirit revealed to them a God of mercy, a mercy intended for all. The Christian God pours out his forgiveness, redeeming past sins and our human brokenness.

It is in Luke’s Gospel that we read the parable of the Good Samaritan, a foreigner who treats his enemy as his dearest friend. We read the Prodigal Son, and weep as the father runs out to meet his lost boy. Luke recounts the woman anointing the feet of Jesus, a woman shattered by sin and falling into the arms of her Creator. Luke records Mary’s longest recorded speech, the Magnificat, in which the Mother of God proclaims the greatness and mercy of God, who exalts the lowly, and he relays the events of the Annunciation and the Nativity, in which God’s messengers announce that the Messiah will be for all people.

Luke will likely remain a mysterious figure in Christianity’s history, whose full life we will only learn when we too enter, God-willing, into the great communion of saints. But the many questions themselves tell us more than anything else about Luke. He was a man completely unbothered by his own biographical details. He had far more important work. He was called to share Christ’s unending mercy with the world, and he did so with a heart ablaze with love.

St. Luke, pray for us!