Today April 25

Today is the feast day of St. Mark. Mark is like a bridge connecting the two greats, Peter and Paul. Because scholars generally agree that Mark, "who had been Peter's interpreter" and who "wrote out carefully . . . as much as he remembered of the Lord's deeds and sayings" is the same guy as "John Mark," the companion of St. Paul, and that that man is the author of the Second Gospel. This Mark was also Barnabus' cousin.

We know Mark from his style and from the only physical description we have of him: he was "colobodactylus" -- "stumpy-fingered." Okay. This is kind of true of his style, too, being the opposite of the artistic temperament. Mark was rough and impatient, perhaps, but if he were that, he was also sincere and straightforward, which is a corresponding virtue sometimes. He makes no bones about certain unattractive things: for instance, the fact that the apostles were slow to grasp Christ's message; he even uses the words "so dulled were their hearts." (6:52). He doesn't hide their "discreditable ambition" - Angelus Book of Saints, and even of Christ Himself, whom he acknowledges in no uncertain terms to be the Son of God, he relates that "he could not do any wonderful works [in Nazareth]," was accused of imprudence and even craziness by some of His relatives, and was disappointed in His expectations of the fig tree. "With a historian of this caliber we are in safe hands." - Angelus.

His remains rest under the high altar of, appropriately, San Marco in Venice, brought back -- piously stolen as it were -- by Venetian sailors from where they were in Alexandria, where he died, possibly burned as a martyr. It is a tradition that he preached there, but if he was ever a bishop there it is doubtful (Origen and Clement don't mention it.)

I think it's neat to contemplate that he is a man of few words, of uncertain grammar (he mixes verb tenses all the time and overuses the word "and"), and of common expression (he uses the vulgar Historical Present 150 times compared with just 10 times in Luke's Gospel which is twice as long!). But he is the lion, you know, because he starts his Gospel with the "majestic desert voice of the Baptist." He is honest and integral, he is vigorous and vivid, a great historian and a great man.