Although we refer to each Gospel by the author's name, the Gospels are, in fact, anonymous. There is a message in this fact. The Third Gospel, for example, is not really "The Gospel of Saint Luke", but rather "The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke." This is not a mere matter of the correct wording. It is rather an invitation to adopt a proper mindset and way of reading the Gospel. There is only one Gospel, but it is given to us through the work of four different evangelists. While we are grateful for the different Gospels, we concentrate all our attention on Jesus Christ, who was in himself the living Gospel which the written Gospels reveal to us.

Our celebration of an Evangelist's feast day is a reminder of several important gifts of God. Different portraits of Jesus reveal more fully the gracefulness of his humanity and remind us that we need to assimilate the Gospel in different ways at different moments in our lives. On this Feast of Saint Luke, let us pray for the grace to appreciate the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ as he recorded it for us.