Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2024: 160, Friday 18 October 2024, Saint Luke the Evangelist

Saint Luke depicted in a fresco in the Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopianó in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and this week began with the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XX). The Church Calendar celebrates Saint Luke the Evangelist today (18 October).

We are staying within sight of Saint Thomas’s Anglican Cathedral in Kuching, and I learned this week that Francis Thomas McDougall (1817-1886), the first Anglican bishop in Sarawak (1849-1868), was consecrated bishop in Calcutta on Saint Luke’s Day, 18 October 1855. He was supported by SPG (now USPG) and was styled Bishop of Labuan and Sarawak because Labuan was a British territory and Sarawak was not. His consecration was the first of an English bishop to take place outside the British Isles.

We are still in the process of cleaning up our apartment in Kuching. But I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

Saint Luke, represented by the figure of a winged ox at the porch of Newman University Church on Saint Stephen’s Green, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Luke 10: 1-9 (NRSVA):

1 After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. 2 He said to them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest. 3 Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. 4 Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. 5 Whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace to this house!” 6 And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. 7 Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the labourer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. 8 Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9 cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you”.’

Saint Luke in a spandrel beneath the dome in Analipsi Church (Εκκλησία Ανάληψη) or the Church of the Ascension in Georgioupoli in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

In the Church Calendar, today [18 October] is the Feast of Saint Luke (Λουκάς) the Evangelist, traditionally remembered as the author of the Third Gospel and of the Acts of the Apostles.

I have never quite worked out why Saint Luke among the four evangelists is traditionally represented in Church art and architecture as a winged ox. But I find he is an interesting Biblical figure, not just as an evangelist, but as a writer who provided fascinating accounts of his travels – in all, he names 32 countries, 54 cities and nine islands – and as a key figure in the tradition of icons and iconography.

Although Saint Luke is not one of the Twelve, he figures throughout the New Testament. Apart from the Gospel he gives his name to and the Acts of the Apostles, he is also mentioned in the Epistle to Philemon (verse 24), Colossians (4: 14) and II Timothy (4: 11), which is part of the Epistle reading in the Lectionary readings for today.

Later traditions claim Saint Luke is one of the Seventy at the heart of the Gospel reading at the Eucharist today, that he is one of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, or even that he is closely related to the Apostle Paul. But Saint Luke, in his own statement at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, tells us he was not an eyewitness to the events of the Gospel. On the other hand, he repeatedly uses the word ‘we’ as he describes Saint Paul’s missionary journeys in the Acts of the Apostles, indicating he was personally there so many times.

Yet, both Saint Luke’s Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles are detailed in history, expression, and narrative that are held in regard by Biblical historians and archaeologists for their historical accuracy and trustworthiness.

Saint Luke is also known as the ‘glorious physician,’ and – especially in the Eastern Church – as an icon writer.

It is said that Saint Luke was born in Antioch in Syria (now in Turkey) to Greek-speaking parents. As a physician, he was said to have had a skill for healing, but that he left all this behind around the year 50 AD and joined Saint Paul after they met in Antioch.

He may have accompanied Saint Paul on his missionary journeys before staying on in Troas (Troy) after Saint Paul left, although it is also possible that he was with Saint Paul in Rome until Saint Paul was martyred (see II Timothy 4: 11; Acts 28: 16). Tradition says Saint Luke died in Thebes, in central Greece, at the age of 84.

Saint Luke gives us the great poetry of the canticles Magnificat (Luke 1: 46-55), Benedictus (Luke 1: 68-79) and Nunc Dimittis (Luke 2: 29-32). He alone gives us the Annunciation, the Visitation, the birth of Saint John the Baptist, and the Presentation of the Christ Child in the Temple. He introduces us to Elizabeth and Zechariah, the angels and the shepherds at the first Christmas, Simeon and Anna, the Christ Child lost in the Temple, the Good Samaritan, the unjust steward, the Prodigal Son, the healed Samaritan, Zacchaeus the tax-collector in Jericho, and the Disciples on the Road to Emmaus.

Saint Luke devotes significantly more attention to women. He presents Christ as the constant friend of the poor, the downtrodden, the marginalised, the sidelined, healing the sick, comforting even the despairing thief on the cross beside him.

As I arm challenged by the ways of the world, I sometimes wonder how – like Saint Luke the Gospel writer and Saint Luke the Iconographer – I can present the world with meaningful and accessible accounts and images of who Christ is.

As I pray each morning about the work of the Anglican mission agency USPG, I find inspiration in the commitment of Saint Luke the early missionary, with his accounts of the missionary work of the early Church.

Without Saint Luke, we may wonder how we would have come to know about the earliest missionary endeavours of Saint Paul and the Apostolic Church.

Saint Luke remains an attractive and interesting Biblical figure … as an evangelist, as someone who presents Christ in ways that can be understood in the language of the people, whether word or image, as someone who gives healing a proper place in ministry, as a friend of the poor and the sick, the marginalised and the stereotyped, as someone who, in all his travels and travails, remains faithful unto death to the ministry he is called to and is charged with.

Saint Luke depicted in a stained-glass window by Catherine O’Brien of An Túr Gloine in Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale … Saint Luke’s Day is on 18 October (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 18 October 2024, Saint Luke the Evangelist):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is the ‘Mission hospitals in Malawi’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update by Tamara Khisimisi, Project Co-ordinator, Anglican Council in Malawi.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 18 October 2024, Saint Luke the Evangelist) invites us to pray:

Let us give thanks for the life and works of Luke the Evangelist. May we be inspired by his Christian witness.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you called Luke the physician,
whose praise is in the gospel,
to be an evangelist and physician of the soul:
by the grace of the Spirit
and through the wholesome medicine of the gospel,
give your Church the same love and power to heal;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Almighty God,
who on the day of Pentecost
sent your Holy Spirit to the apostles
with the wind from heaven and in tongues of flame,
filling them with joy and boldness to preach the gospel:
by the power of the same Spirit
strengthen us to witness to your truth
and to draw everyone to the fire of your love;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

Saint Luke the Evangelist and Physician … a stained-glass window in Saint Michael’s Church, Tipperary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

The journey to Kuching, travelling all night, sleeping in snatches, and asking if this was all folly

The Sarawak State Legislative Assembly on the north bank of the Sarawak River … we arrived safely in Kuching after a 48-hour odyssey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter. – TS Eliot, Journey of the Magi

It’s not certainly not yet winter. But the journey was such a long journey at this time of the year. As Eliot might say, ‘A hard time we had of it.’

The journey from Stony Stratford to Kuching has been an arduous odyssey that took almost 48 hours from door-to-door and that involved two taxi trips, one train journey, four flights and five airports. Along the way there was one unscheduled hotel stay in Amsterdam but lost another planned stopover in Singapore, where we lost our hotel booking.

Our flights were booked through Air France and KLM and were supposed to involve a flight from Birmingham to Amsterdam late on Sunday, connecting immediately to a flight from Amsterdam to Singapore, arriving late on Monday afternoon, with a planned overnight stay in Singapore.

But I should have been aware of the red flags at the check-in process. Despite having booked in many weeks in advance, Air France/KLM told us the seats at the price we had booked were all gone, and demanded we pay extra to keep our booking on the flight from Amsterdam.

The queues for security at departures are still a nightmare at Birmingham International, and there is nothing pleasant about travelling from that airport these days. On the train from Milton Keynes, we received texts telling us our first flight was delayed by over an hour. We were not going to catch the second, connecting flight.

At Birmingham, we asked at check-in to be rebooked, and, it seems with great reluctance but with much waving of hands, we were eventually rebooked with an early morning flight from Amsterdam to Charles de Gaulle in Paris, connecting with a later morning, overnight flight from Paris to Singapore.

When we arrived at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam gave us a voucher for €15 each for food and beverages in the airport, but refused pointedly to help us find overnight accommodation. I pointed out our rights, and was told my rights were irrelevant, it simply was not within their budget to pay for our hotel overnight.

We were caught over a barrel. Other passengers had been offered a room in the Sheraton, but we were too far down the queue to count for anyone to bother about our plight.

By then, there only three rooms were left in the Sheraton Hotel. We were told if we kept the receipts we might (there seemed to be an emphasis on Might) be able to claim back our outlay at a later stage. We made the booking and went back to the KLM help desk in the transit area. They had closed, and the staff had left.

Talk about being left high and dry. It is not as though KLM and Air France did not know about this problem. They had flagged it up early on Sunday afternoon. We were abandoned to our own devices. Our rights did not seem to matter and we were left feeling were a mere inconvenience.

Waiting in Paris for a flight to Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

We stayed overnight in Amsterdam, the vouchers we were given barely covered the cost of two breakfasts on Monday morning, and, yes, we managed to make the connecting flight from Paris to Singapore. But we had now lost our overnight hotel booking in Singapore, and a visit I had been looking forward to was no longer going to happen.

A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

The glass panels of the dome of the Jewel at Changi Airport in Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Six hours waiting in an airport is long enough to be bored, but not long enough to risk travelling into a city centre, look around and still get back in time for check-in for the next flight – particularly as our anxiety levels had been raised with the previous cancellations and rerouting.

Changi Airport is at the eastern end of Singapore and about 20 km from Singapore’s Downtown Core. So, we headed from Terminal 1 to Terminal 4 at Changi Airport, to make sure we were still on the connecting flight to Kuching. And then decided to enjoy the few hours we had been the terminals.

Changi is one of the busiest transit hubs in the world and one of the largest hub airports in south-east Asia, serving over 100 airlines and more than 60 million passengers a year. Its impressive amenities include a butterfly garden, a free 24-hour cinema, and a rooftop swimming pool.

We decided to have lunch at Jewel Changi Airport, a nature-themed entertainment and shopping complex where the centrepiece is the world’s tallest indoor waterfall, the Rain Vortex, surrounded by a terraced forest setting. The Shiseido Forest Valley is an indoor garden spanning five storeys, and the Canopy Park at the top level has gardens and leisure facilities.

Jewel was officially opened on 18 October 2019 and has about 40 to 50 million visitors a year. The toroidal glass-and-steel façade was designed by a consortium of architects, led by Moshe Safdie. The landscape architect was PWP Landscape Architecture, who co-designed the National 9/11 Memorial in New York City. The Rain Vortex was engineered by the water design firm WET Design. It has a 360-degree light and sound show projected onto it.

Jewel was planned to combine a marketplace and an urban park. The glass panels of the dome are framed in steel that rests on a complex latticework.

The Shiseido Forest Valley is one of Asia's largest indoor gardens, spanning five stories and approximately 22,000 sq m in the heart of Jewel Changi Airport. It includes around 3,000 trees and 60,000 shrubs of 120 species that live in high-altitude tropical forests from around the world.

The Rain Vortex at Changi Airport is 40 metres high and the world’s largest and tallest indoor waterfall (Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The Rain Vortex is 40 metres high and the world’s largest and tallest indoor waterfall. Recirculating rain water is pumped to the roof to free fall through a round hole at up to 37,850 litres per minute to a basement-level pool. An acrylic funnel at the bottom prevents splashing and insulates the sound of the cascade.

The toroid-shaped roof has more than 9,000 pieces of glass spanning 200 by 150 metres, with a sloped oculus as the mouth of the waterfall acting as ‘a continuation of the building … completed in a liquid form.’

At night, the circular walls of the waterfall becomes a 360-degree stage for a light-and-sound show.

To prevent excess humidity in the Jewel, the waterfall’s flow alternates between cascades and trickles that reduce air turbulence. The Changi Airport Skytrain connecting the terminals passes above ground near the waterfall, allowing passengers to see the Vortex and Jewel.

The park includes a suspension bridge, the Canopy Bridge, 23 metres above the ground which offers a panoramic view of the Rain Vortex.

Terminal 4 opened seven years ago in 2017, and has gained a reputation for its culture-centric boutique design and technology-driven innovations. T4 offers a visually immersive and theatrical experience with specially curated art and entertainment features by local and international artists.

The collection of art and entertainment formats was designed to be accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds. Inspired by the orchid, the national flower of Singapore, the interior design is shaped through symmetrical petal designs. The designs on the petal-shaped skylights, ceiling lights, marble flooring and carpets create a cohesive design language. The project is led by the SAA Architects Pte Ltd in collaboration with the award-winning UK-based international architecture firm Benoy Ltd.

The landscaping in the terminal covers 2,000 square metres, with 186 large trees, and 160 ficus trees form a ‘green’ boulevard along the boarding corridor, separating the boarding area from the common space at the departure gates.

‘Petalclouds’ is a kinetic artwork of six identical metallic in the Central Galleria in Terminal 4 at Changi Airport in Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The highlights of T4 include ‘Petalclouds’, a kinetic artwork of six identical metallic structures rotating overhead in the Central Galleria, spanning the 200 metre stretch linking T4’s public and transit areas.

The work is designed to evoke the impression of clouds moving through the sky. Each identical ‘cloud’ consists of 16 individual petal elements suspended on wires that slowly rotate the structures while transmitting power to lighting elements inside them. It was designed by the German artist collective ART+COM and undulates is in tandem with a soundtrack by the contemporary composer Ólafur Arnalds, aimed at creating a soothing antidote to pre-flight stress.

The Heritage Zone in the transit area offers a glimpse into the evolution of shophouse architecture from the 1880s to the 1950s, including the rich and colourful Peranakan heritage once often seen in Singapore’s Katong and Chinatown areas.

A row of boutique storefronts are designed to resemble the historic Peranakan shop-houses around Singapore. Each façade traces the evolution of shop-house architecture, starting with the baroque designs from 1880 to 1900, through to the post-war décor of the 1950s.

An LED screen embedded in the façade brings it to life with regular showings of Peranakan Love Story, a six-minute cultural theatre piece featuring an array of virtual characters that appear to mill about in the shop-house windows and living rooms. Narrating the story of an unlikely romance between two passionate musician-neighbours set in 1930s Singapore, the musical without dialogue is a collaboration with the Singaporean composer and artist Dick Lee.

The Heritage Zone in Terminal 4 at Changi Airport offers a glimpse into the evolution of shophouse architecture from the 1880s to the 1950s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024; click on image for full-screen viewing)

T4 is also home to three physical art sculptures depicting a common theme of travel or aviation. Chong Fah Cheng, a sculptor from Singapore, created ‘Hey Ah Chek!’ in the check-in hall. The artwork shows a mother and her son hailing a trishaw after a visit to the market.

The French artist Cedric Le Borgne has created ‘Les Oiseaux’ (‘The Birds’) in the arrival and departure halls. The three bird sculptures are made from a collection of 3D-wire luminous characters that metaphorically represent the different emotions one tends to feel at an airport.

I could identify with the ‘Travelling Family’ by Kurt Laurenz Metzler, one of the many sculptures and artworks in the Departure Transit area at Terminal 4. In these sculptures, the artist seeks to capture the feelings of excitement and energy he felt with his family as they transited through New York and later at Changi Airport. It is representative of the familiar emotions passengers feel when setting off from an airport to experience the world.

The ‘Travelling Family’ is a set of aluminium sculptures Metzler created in 2017. He shows the joys and tribulations of a family on a journey, their excitement and frenzy that always go with travel.

This is Metzler’s fourth public sculpture in Singapore. His previous works, including ‘Building People’ (2008) and ‘Man on the Bench’ (2010), at Capital Tower in the Central Business District, and ‘Urban People’ (2009), at Orchard Road, a bustling shopping district.

T4 has been designed to make the airport visit a delightful experience that is fun, vibrant and full of surprises. I almost regretted the call for boarding. But I was happy to make the flight to Kuching, and we have arrived safely after a marathon than turned into an odyssey.

The ‘Travelling Family’ by Kurt Laurenz in the Departure Transit area at Terminal 4 in Changi Airport in Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)