Theotokos icon painted by St Luke

 

Today is the feast day of St Luke in the Western churches. At the small Syrian Orthodox Church of St Mark in the Armenian quarter of Jerusalem is this icon of Mary, said to have be painted by St Luke himself. If you visit, ask sister Justina to sing the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic – her native language and our Lord’s – a direct link, down the centuries.

The Collect from the Book of Common Prayer:

Almighty God, who calledst Luke, the Physician, whose praise is in the Gospel, to be an Evangelist, the Physician of the Soul: May it please thee that, by the wholesome medicines of the doctrine delivered by him, all the diseases of our souls may be healed; through the merits of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.