Today, we celebrate the feast day of St. Mark the evangelist. Mark wrote what scholars believe is the oldest of the four Gospels. His Gospel was probably written sometime around 60 AD and was written primarily for Gentile converts in Rome.
In today’s
Gospel reading, we hear the commission that Jesus gives to his apostles. Jesus' last words to his apostles point us to
his saving mission and to the mission he gives to them to be witnesses to his
saving death and resurrection, a mission to proclaim the Good News of salvation
to all the world.
While some of us are ordained to
specific ministries in the Church, while some are sent as missionaries to bring
the Gospel to different parts of the world, all of us as followers of Jesus are
given a share in the task of being heralds of the Good News of Jesus. We are not left alone to that task. We are
members of the Body of Christ, the Church.
The risen Lord works in and through us by the power of his Holy
Spirit. Through our words and actions,
through our faith, the risen Christ is still a very real presence in the world
today.
Celebrating the feast day of St. Mark
the Evangelist reminds us of how central the apostolic faith of the early
Church is to our tradition and to what we believe. The Second Vatican Council attempted to
modernize and renew our traditions in the context of our culture and the signs
of the times of the modern world, but the Council also attempted to get back to
roots of our faith as expressed by the evangelists, the early church fathers
and mothers, and the apostles. In the
spirit of St. Mark and the commission that Jesus gives to all his followers,
may we be filled with the joy of the risen Christ. May we long to live a life of praise and
thanksgiving for the glory of God.
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