Saint Mark

In the midst of our Easter Time, the Church celebrates the Feast of Saint Mark. This is Saint Mark's biography, as offered in the Magnificat, "Saint Mark, a cousin of Barnabas, accompanies Saint Paul on his first missionary journey and later went with him to Rome. He was a disciple of Saint Peter whose teaching was the basis for Mark's Gospel. Mark is said to be the founder of the church of Alexandria" (259). This morning, I asked those gathered at Mass, "What does it mean to evangelize?" There were no responses! I said this is something that we should all know because we are all evangelizers of the Good News. We proclaim the Good News, not just with words, but with our very lives. As a faithful people, we need to put our faith into action. It can be the words that we use or the service that we provide to others. There are many ways that we can evangelize! Of course, I mentioned that evangelization is not just for priests and religious but all the people of God. Priests and Religious cannot be everywhere so we entrust others to help us in the mission. That is why Jesus chose disciples so they could continue the mission entrusted to them. I even used a statement that I heard several months ago at our clergy renewal days. "People feel that the only way to get involved is by being asked, but they don't need to be asked, because Jesus has already done the asking, we just need to respond." The opportunities abound when it comes to ministry in the Church and working to evangelize in the world and in our communities, we just need to take hold of the opportunities and go with them. The assurance that we have is that Jesus is with us at all times. He told the disciples that before he ascended to the Father, "I will be with you until the end of the age." God gives us the grace and strength that we need. We also have that divine assistance from examples like Saint Mark. Let us do our part to be evangelizers of the Good News and share the love of Christ with all our brothers and sisters! Saint Mark, pray for us!!!