St. Luke

Who they were

Luke was, in Paul's own words, the beloved physician: a Greek educated doctor, likely of Antioch, who joined Paul's journeys and stayed when others left. Only Luke is with me, Paul wrote near the end.

He gave the Church a quarter of the New Testament in his Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, and his Gospel has a personality. It is the one with the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son, the one where women, the poor, the sick, and the foreigner keep getting the best lines, and the one that preserved Mary's side of the story: the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Magnificat, and the finding in the Temple. Which means the Joyful Mysteries prayed in this app are substantially Luke's reporting. The tradition that he painted the first icon of Mary is late legend and is told as such, but it made him patron of artists, and the deeper truth under it stands. No one drew her portrait like Luke did.

Why people turn to St. Luke

Physicians, surgeons, nurses, and medical students, which is the formal patronage. Artists by the old tradition. And for this app in particular, he is the evangelist of the Joyful Mysteries.

How to ask their intercession

For a doctor by name, since most are prayed at and rarely prayed for. Medical students before boards have a specific claim. And pray the Joyful Mysteries with him once, noticing whose memories they are.