St. Luke

When I was asked to deliver a commencement speech for St. Luke’s medical school, the first topic that came to my mind was, what else or who else but the saint himself. Physicians know him as their patron saint (which is why we have St. Luke’s hospital and the medical school) and some will remember him as the author of one of the four canonical gospels in the New Testament. But that’s about it.

I did some research and was impressed by how “cool” Luke was (I’m thinking of the movie “Cool Hand Luke” starring Paul Newman, which has nothing to do with the saint). Yet this saint is underrated, the most glaring indication coming in the way he is almost invisible in local place names. Despite the many “San” and “Santa” towns and barangays we have in the Philippines, not a single town is named after him. And of the more than 40,000 barangays in the country, I found only four named after him.

That search for St. Luke (or San Lucas) proved to be most informative about barangay names, and I will write a separate column about that topic one of these days. For today’s column, let me share information I gathered about this enigmatic, almost mysterious man. Note that I’m going to drop the “Saint” title to make Luke less distant.

Historian

Luke was born between 65 and 70 AD, in Antioch, Syria, and died in his 80s. His body was transferred to Constantinople and then to Padua, Italy. Luke is so venerated that there was even a genetic and forensic study conducted on his purported remains to establish if the corpse was indeed his. We will never know, of course, but the elaborate tests, using mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) extracted from two teeth, establish that the remains were those of a Syrian. The researchers also found “evident signs of osteoporosis and skeletal deformations,” suggesting that the individual was aged 70 or more.

Note that Luke was born after Christ. He is considered one of 72 disciples, early evangelists spreading this new religion that challenged not just Judaism but also the rich and the powerful, including the Roman Empire.

Biblical scholars acknowledge Luke as a historian.  Of the four synoptic gospels, Luke’s is said to have the most historical detail. It is through Luke that historians and archaeologists have been able to find leads to reconstruct the historical Jesus. For example, it was only in Luke’s gospel where we learn that Mary and Joseph made their trip to Bethlehem because of a census ordered by the Roman emperor

Augustus Caesar.

Many people are unaware that the Acts of the Apostles, also part of the New Testament, was also written by Luke, and is considered an extremely useful reference as a history of the early Church.

Luke’s writings emphasize a social-justice component of this new religion, especially with its preferential treatment of the poor and the oppressed, so well summarized in Luke 4:18: “He has consecrated me to bring good news to poor people, he has sent me to proclaim release to captives and restoration of sight to the blind, to set the oppressed at liberty.”

In Luke 19:1-10 we read of a chief tax collector who, in response to Jesus’ teachings, agrees to give half of his property to the poor. (I just had to mention this passage knowing the great love our physicians have for the country’s chief tax collector.)

‘Magnificat’

Women are also more visible in Luke’s writings than in the other gospels—important when one considers how prominent women were among the early Christians, a radical challenge to the norms of the times.

Luke’s account of Mary accepting to become the mother of Jesus has been transformed into the “Magnificat,” an early Christian hymn which now has many versions, from classical composers like Bach, to our own Fr. Eduardo Hontiveros’ “Hangad.” The “Magnificat” crosses the many divisions within Christianity, and is loved by Roman Catholics, Orthodox Catholics, Angelicans, Protestants.

The “Magnificat” is a powerful piece that speaks of a young girl’s strength and faith. In addition, its passages speak of the spirit of early Christianity, again with an emphasis on social justice and humility: “He has used the power of his arm/He scattered the proud of heart/He overthrew princes from their thrones/And the humble he uplifted./The hungry he has loaded with good things/And the rich he sent away empty.”

So far then, we see that Luke the physician was also a writer, historian, and evangelist. One could add that, inadvertently, he became a lyricist as well.

But there’s more to Luke.

Luke, too, is said to have been the first icon painter—in other words, an artist, with hundreds of paintings of the Virgin Mary and the Child Jesus, of Saints Peter and Paul, and even a whole gospel book credited to him.

Why are icons so important? The Jews actually prohibited the use of images, worried that this would lead to idolatry. Luke and other early Christian leaders saw icons as an alternative, especially to the Greeks’ many statues: flat pictures to be used for veneration, and for religious teaching.

Much accomplished, Luke is now considered the patron saint of physicians, of surgeons, of artists, of students, and, strangely of butchers (a fact that, I hope, our surgeons will set aside).

Seriously, Luke is someone who would probably have been comfortable in the 21st century—ever inquisitive, ever ready to engage the world and question traditions. He should also be a special patron of the 2014 graduating class of St. Luke’s medical school. The dean of the medical school, Dr. Brigido Carandang, observed how “makulit,” or persistently inquisitive, this class was, which I think should be an asset of all physicians.

I suspect that if Luke wrote with such power, it was because he was a good physician, someone who had honed the skills of observation and of listening.

Now that you know more about Luke, I hope you appreciate him better. Name a child after him, or a barangay, or a clinic (not a hospital, because St Luke’s has the rights now).

Better still, whether you are a physician or not, be like St. Luke.

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