Today’s readings are 1 Peter 5: 5-11; Psalm 89 and Mk. 16: 15-20
Today the universal church celebrates the feast day of St. Mark, the evangelist.
It is widely accepted Mark was a member of the early church community in Jerusalem, and the early community used his mother’s house as a place of prayer during Peter’s imprisonment (see Acts 12:12). Later Mark served under Sts. Paul and Barnabas during their travels throughout the eastern Mediterranean. He eventually became the bishop of Alexandria where he was martyred. In the year 828 Venetian merchants moved Mark’s relics and body to the City of Venice, where he rests within the world-famous Basilica named after him (“San Marco”, in Italian). He is the patron saint of Alexandria and Venice.
Anyone who visits Venice will see the Venetian flag displayed throughout the city, as the phot above illustrates. This flag is of dark red and gold colours, and has the traditional image of St. Mark as a winged lion (based on the Ezekiel 1: 5,10 and Revelation 4: 6-7), alongside an open Bible, with the phrase written on the Bible "Pax tibi, Marce, evangelista meus" (from the Latin: Peace be with you, Mark, my evangelist) which, according to tradition, is the first part of the phrase spoken by an angel to Mark while he was still in Venice at the start of the journey to Rome (the full phrase is “Peace be with you, Mark, my evangelist. Here your body will rest”).
My appreciation for Mark’s gospel is based on a course I took on his gospel as part of my seminary studies. I learned that while is His gospel is brief, it is also very much to the point. He is quite sparing in his use of details and seen in his description of the temptation of Christ in the desert – (compare Mark’s account – Mk. 1: 12-13 with that of St. Matthew 4: 1 -11 and Luke 4: 1-13). His gospel, being the earliest (written around 70 A.D.), also served as the foundation for Sts. Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels.
On this his feast day, perhaps in our prayers today as we ask for St. Mark's intercessions for us, we can change one word in that famous phrase: Peace be with you, Mark, our evangelist.