Israel Risquet, priest of the archdiocese of Seville, Spain, shares with Exaudi readers this article about the figure of Saint Mark, to better understand the evangelist, a disciple of Peter in Rome.
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When “Marquitos” was born he was very thin and small, we told him that he looked like a Pictolín, a small and elongated candy. I grew up with him, the third of my five male cousins, we lived very close, in one of the five poorest neighborhoods in Europe and the first in Spain, the Three Neighborhoods that they call: The Little Birds, the Mother of God and the Candlemas (in Seville, Spain)… Well, well, I’m leaving the paper. This small introduction serves to give a few touches on Saint Mark.
Saint Mark the Evangelist is from the 1st century and his feast day is celebrated on April 25, this year 2021 coincides with the 4th Sunday of Easter, and we will not be able to celebrate it as the Sunday liturgy prevails. He is represented with the biblical tetramorphs, four forms, one of each evangelist, in the form of a Lion, because in the Gospel of him, according to St. Jerome, he represents Jesus Christ as King.
My professor of Matthew and Mark in the seminary loved him very much, he said that he possibly wrote the oldest Gospel, years 50-60. It is the smallest, with just 16 chapters, although, yes, in some stories it is very long, for example: “passage of Jairus’s daughter, with the hemorrhagic woman”, a whole catechesis on the Faith. It is called the Gospel of St. Peter, because when he was with him in Rome he drank from his preaching.
He is the only evangelist who titles his work like this: “The Gospel”, The Good News, Mc 1,1. In it, on the night of the passion, he tells of a young man who followed Jesus and when the guards tried to stop him, he fled naked. It could be a personal experience and it could be himself. Everything indicates that he is the son of the woman who welcomes Peter into her house when he is released from prison by the Angel. That boy would be fascinated by the first Pope of the Early Church.
Apparently, he very soon joined the mission of the Church with his cousin St. Barnabas, who together with Saint Paul were sent to preach the Good News on an itinerant basis. In the Acts of the Apostles and in the Pauline Letters his adventures are recounted, on one occasion it seems that Mark wants to return to Jerusalem with his mother due to fatigue and Saint Paul seems to get angry with him and argue with Barnabas, and Mark was very young
Some years later, he goes with Barnabas, who had separated from Paul, to evangelize again, and then his information disappears, and we know nothing until he appears again and already in Rome, as a disciple of Peter, whom he will call the first Pope: “Son”. When Paul arrived in Rome, they would be reconciled because he named him his collaborator in the prison where he was awaiting trial. They had to resume their relationship with great affection, since Paul cites him as a “consolation” for him in prison. And near his end, Paul, sends for him because he needs him.
Tradition tells us that Saint Mark founded the Church of Alexandria and at the beginning of the 9th century some merchants from Venice took his remains to his city, where they rest in the Beautiful Cathedral that bears his name.
I end with the end of the Collect Prayer of his Feast: Saint Mark, “Grant us to take advantage of his teachings in such a way that we faithfully follow in the footsteps of Christ (…)”.
Big hug in Christ and my blessing +.
