October: Day 18: Holy Apostle and Evangelist Luke

October: Day 18:
Holy Apostle and Evangelist Luke

(Refutation of Prejudices That Make People Not Want To Be Treated by Doctors)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. The Holy Church now glorifies in its hymns Saint Luke, whose memory is celebrated today, as an Evangelist and writer of the Acts of the Apostles, and as a doctor. Saint Luke was born in Antioch and was considered one of the 70 apostles chosen by the Lord Himself. During the suffering of the Lord, after the defeat of the Shepherd, the sheep of the flock scattered and Saint Luke abandoned the Lord. When the news of the resurrection of the Savior reached Luke, he did not believe the joy and wondered. From such a confused state the Lord Himself brought him out, appearing to him on the road to Emmaus. The Savior walked with Luke and Cleopas to Emmaus unrecognized and convinced them of the truth of His resurrection with the words of Holy Scripture. Then He revealed Himself to them during the breaking of bread and became invisible. After the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles, Saint Luke, in the rank of bishop, was a co-worker of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in spreading the Christian faith.

Second Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent (St. Luke of Simferopol)

 The Wisdom of the World and the Wisdom of a Pure Heart

By St. Luke, Archbishop of Simferopol and All Crimea

To you, my flock, I will say the words that the Holy Apostle Paul wrote to his Philippian flock, and may you put them in your heart: “And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ” (Phil. 1:9-10).

How to understand this? How should our love grow in knowledge and all discernment? There are two completely different areas of knowledge. One is the one that all scientists are engaged in: they explore nature and everything that happens in it, accumulate vast knowledge of the wisdom of this world, and the other is the one that even people who are completely unlearned reach; to perceive this knowledge, one must only have a pure heart.