O Theophilus!

a meditation for Saint Luke the Evangelist

Thank you for joining us!

Before we begin, I wanted to share a Comment Highlight from Monday’s discussion question:

This is an excerpt from

Scoot

’s insightful response:

I struggle with not making other people's problems my problems--but I also know that there's some level where that is essential. Before I moved, service of some kind was a big part of my routine and I haven't found something to replace it yet. Service is hard--you see people in all kinds of states of life, and it's taken some effort for me to remind myself that compassion doesn't (always) mean internalizing or resolving their problems--but it means, variously, giving people dignity in one specific moment.

Thank you for responding,

Scoot

! A longtime member of the community here at The Wildroot Parables, you can find Scoot’s Catholic writings at The Peasant Times-Dispatch and his sci-fi/speculative fiction at Gibberish.

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Photo by Hans Eiskonen on Unsplash

O Theophilus!

Luke the Evangelist is one of the authors of the canonical gospels of Jesus Christ’s ministry on earth. As such, he is an extremely prominent figure in Christianity, and yet not much is certain about him and his life.

His feast day was yesterday, on the 18th.

I find Luke extremely fascinating. He was not a disciple of Christ during Jesus’s lifetime—Luke himself implies that he did not bear direct witness to Jesus’s earthly ministry—but historians seem to agree that he was probably present during the time after Christ ascended into Heaven, recorded in the biblical book of Acts (which he may also have written). In Christian art, Luke is often symbolized by a bull or ox.

In his gospel, Luke often addresses his words to a figure called “Theophilus”, but scholars remain divided on whether this Theophilus was one person—someone of great import and high rank—or whether this was simply the name that Luke used to signify the members of the early church, since “theophilus” means beloved or friend of God. If this theory is true, then any Christian reader of his gospel would be considered theophilus, according to Luke.

It is generally accepted by experts that Luke was a physician, and that he did extensive research and interviews of Jesus’s family, followers, and friends in order to write his gospel.

This interview process, or at least the version of it in my imagination, is what inspired the following poem, written for the Evangelist’s feast in 2022.

The Interview

the smell of bread filled the house
as His mother sat me down
with a plate of food
she had made
with her own hands,

and suddenly, O Theophilus,
I did not know what to ask her;
all of my questions seemed foolish.

what was He like?
how did you know what He was?
what did your husband think?

in that moment
I wanted all of her stories
and yet none of them.

the mystery was exquisite.
the rumors were adequate.

but no, Theophilus!
I had come all this way
and she had shown such hospitality;

so I asked,
how did it begin?

and she told me the story
from beginning to end,
every detail
as if it had happened moments before,

and there were angels
and kings
and cousins,

and creatures
and mangers
and miracles;

I thought,
how does she remember it so well?

but the answer
was in her eyes, Theophilus.

those soft, sad eyes.

she had pondered these things
for so long, stored away
treasures
in the depths
of her heart

grief and glory
mingled

in a way
only the mother of God
could see.

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