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Saint Luke is the evangelist, poet, artist, and cantor of the Holy Infancy of the Savior of Mankind. While Luke did not invent the Christmas narrative, he did give us the story of Christmas. For it was Luke and only Luke who searched out and found and preserved a birth story "too humble for prouder historians to touch." The Gospel of Luke has been described by Renan as the most beautiful book in the world, and the opening chapters the most beautiful of all.
The first two chapters of Luke give us the Christmas story. He is the only Evangelist to provide certain information about the conception, infancy, and childhood of Jesus. The events that Luke alone describes include the Annuciation, the announcement by the Archangle Gabriel that Mary had been chosen to be the mother of Christ. These words of Luke are the basis for the "Hail Mary" and the Angelus (Latin for angel). Luke also gives the only Gospel account of the Visitation. One of the most beautiful prayers, the Magnificat, appears in this passage. He is the only Evangelist to describe the presentation of the child Jesus in the Temple according to Jewish custom.
These five events that Luke describes, the Annuciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Presentation and the Finding of Jesus in the Temple make up the joyful mysteries of the Rosary. It is widely held that one of the people Luke interviewed, perhaps at greater length than any other witness, may have been Mary!, the mother of Christ.
It was the "beloved physician" who could describe motherhood in all the holiness of our Christmas narratives. It was "he" who had given all his being to the service of others, and who was never to hold a child of his own in his arms, who set down the raptured words: "My soul doth magnify the Lord". Of all four Evangelists, it is Luke who best reveals Jesus the man, friend always of the poor and the downtrodden, comforting even the despairing thief crucified beside him.
Saint Luke was never married, and lived to be 84 years old. He is venerated as a martyr. According to tradition, he was a skilled artist, and several pictures of Our Blessed Lady, are attributed to his
Extensive history of origins (12/03)
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Tuesday, December 9, 2003 3:36 PM