Feast of St Mark

As we celebrate the Feast of St Mark, Fr Paul reads from the Gospel of Mark (16: 15-20) in which Jesus tells his disciples, ‘Go out to the whole world, proclaim the good news to all creation, he who believes and is baptized will be saved’. They went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word by the signs that accompanied it.

Fr Paul says, from what we know, Mark was the cousin of Barnabas. We also know Mark accompanied Paul on his first missionary journey and that he later followed Paul to Rome.

Fr Paul is also aware, through study, that Mark was a disciple of Peter. When you read Mark’s Gospel which is the first Gospel written, you can see it has been done from Peter’s point of view.  Mark is also credited with establishing the church in Alexandria and his body was stolen from there in 828 and it was taken to Venice where they adopted him as their Patron Saint.

So today, Fr Paul says, as we do in the Church when we have the Litany of the Saints, for our reflection we say ‘St Mark, Pray for us’.