Posts Tagged ‘Luke’
An Evangelist’s Icon – Br. Sean Glenn
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist
Luke 4:14-21
Today the Church remembers Saint Luke the Evangelist—the author of the collection of writings we have come to know as The Gospel According to Lukeand The Acts of the Apostles. It is difficult for us to say who exactly Luke may have been; the author is not identified at any point within the text. One prominent tradition identifies him as Luke the physician, an educated gentile or Hellenistic Jewish convert and follower of Saint Paul. Given the proliferation of healing and medicinal imagery within Luke’s gospel, this identification has resonated for many readers. We find it present even here, in this chapel, in the “Workmen’s Windows” at the eastern end of the north ambulatory. We see Luke represented here holding a caduceus, a resonant and ancient symbol of the medicinal arts.
Another early, pious tradition holds that Luke was what we might call the first iconographer—a figure who strove through narrative and representation to convey the Good News in Jesus Christ. We encounter this tradition in the “Workmen’s Windows” here as well. The medallion in the lower third of St. Luke’s window depicts the author at work writing an icon of the Blessed Virgin and the Infant Christ (a narrative window we are only given in Luke’s gospel). Read More
Jesus, the Exorcist – Br. David Vryhof
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Luke 4:31-37
So what do you make of the story we’ve just read from the Gospel of Luke? Do you believe in ‘demons’ or ‘unclean spirits’ that ‘possess’ people and cause physical and mental illness? Do you believe that these ‘demons’ can be ‘cast out’ and that Jesus had power over them, as this story testifies? Or do you suspect that this story so heavily reflects first-century beliefs about human behavior and illness that it has little relevance to us who live in the modern era? Is it difficult for you to make sense of “Jesus, the exorcist”?
Our ability to hear, to comprehend and to profit from accounts like this one from Luke’s gospel is certainly shaped by our modern context. On the one hand, we are enlightened people, with access to vast amounts of information about human psychology, human behavior, and human illnesses that simply did not exist in Jesus’ day. So we might naturally be skeptical about first-century assumptions about demons and demon-possession. It’s likely that we could come up with a number of other plausible explanations for what might have happened that day in the synagogue at Capernaum that would make more sense to our modern minds. Read More