25 April 2017
Feast of St. Mark the Evangelist
In the garden of Gethsemane, as Jesus was being arrested,
St. Mark tells us that “a young man followed [Jesus] wearing nothing but a
linen cloth about his body. They seized
him, but he left the cloth behind and ran off naked” [Mk 14:51]. And there’s general agreement among Scripture
scholars that the young man is Mark himself.
Now, Mark ended up traveling with St. Paul on his missionary
journeys, and then became a disciple of St. Peter, and eventually spread the Gospel
message to Egypt, where he founded the first Christian Church in
Alexandria. It was also there that he
was martyred by having a rope tied around his neck and being dragged through
the city streets until he was dead.
St. Mark had made a significant change in his life. The first time he was seized for being a
disciple of Jesus, he ran away in fear. But
the last time he was seized, he let it happen out of love for Jesus and the
Gospel. And it’s that kind of witness to
the death and resurrection of Jesus that kept the flame of faith alive in
people’s hearts for generations upon generations.
Even today, if someone were to ask us why we have faith, a
solid answer is: Because of all those early Christians, like St. Mark, who
reoriented their whole lives around Christ and were not afraid to die in order
to share the good news. We have faith
because they thought Jesus’ message of hope and love was important enough to
die for.
Thanks be to God for those early Christians whose preaching
still brings people to faith, even today.
Thanks be to God for their words, their actions, their devotion to the
Crucified and Risen Lord.
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