Memory of Saint Mark. He shared the responsibility of preaching the Gospel with Barnabas and Paul and then with Peter. He is the author of the first written Gospel. Read more
Memory of Saint Mark. He shared the responsibility of preaching the Gospel with Barnabas and Paul and then with Peter. He is the author of the first written Gospel.
Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
If we die with him, we shall live with him,
if with him we endure, with him we shall reign.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Mark 16, 15-20
And he said to them, 'Go out to the whole world; proclaim the gospel to all creation.
Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.
These are the signs that will be associated with believers: in my name they will cast out devils; they will have the gift of tongues;
they will pick up snakes in their hands and be unharmed should they drink deadly poison; they will lay their hands on the sick, who will recover.'
And so the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven; there at the right hand of God he took his place,
while they, going out, preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word by the signs that accompanied it.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
If we die with him, we shall live with him,
if with him we endure, with him we shall reign.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Today the Western and the CopticSyriac Byzantine Churches remember the evangelist Mark. Mark, a cousin of Barnabas’, had been a part of the community of Jesus’ disciples who gathered in his mother’s house since his youth, as we read in Acts (12:12). The tradition identifies him in the young man who fled naked at the moment of Jesus’ arrest. Around the year 44 he accompanied Paul and Barnabas to Cyprus and Pamphilia on the apostle’s first missionary journey. Later he found again the apostle Paul in Rome and he stayed with him during his imprisonment. He chose to follow Peter who in his first letter calls him “my son,” while tradition says that he was Peter’s interpreter. In Rome, at the request of many Christians, he wrote down Peter’s preaching, collecting all the things Peter remembered of what was said and done by Jesus. The memory of the evangelist is associated in a special way with Alexandria, where he founded the Church and was martyred. Thus he lived the missionary tension expressed in the concluding words of his Gospel. In a few lines, he summarizes the heart of the Christian message that the disciples need to proclaim the Gospel till the ends of the earth. The Coptic liturgy, from the Church in Egypt, calls Mark “the witness of the suffering of the only-begotten Son.” In the Gospel he wrote, in fact, Mark encourages us to fix our gaze on the mystery of the “suffering servant” in which is hidden the glory of the Son of Man. It is not by chance that the first who converted to the Christian faith at the time of Jesus’ death is the Roman centurion. Seeing how that just man was dying, the centurion said, “Truly this man was the Son of God” (Mk 15:39). Today could be the right moment to begin to read through the entire Gospel of Mark to capture the heart of this disciple and imitate his passion.
Prayer is the heart of the life of the Community of Sant'Egidio and is its absolute priority. At the end of the day, every the Community of Sant'Egidio, large or small, gathers around the Lord to listen to his Word. The Word of God and the prayer are, in fact, the very basis of the whole life of the Community. The disciples cannot do other than remain at the feet of Jesus, as did Mary of Bethany, to receive his love and learn his ways (Phil. 2:5).
So every evening, when the Community returns to the feet of the Lord, it repeats the words of the anonymous disciple: " Lord, teach us how to pray". Jesus, Master of prayer, continues to answer: "When you pray, say: Abba, Father". It is not a simple exhortation, it is much more. With these words Jesus lets the disciples participate in his own relationship with the Father. Therefore in prayer, the fact of being children of the Father who is in heaven, comes before the words we may say. So praying is above all a way of being! That is to say we are children who turn with faith to the Father, certain that they will be heard.
Jesus teaches us to call God "Our Father". And not simply "Father" or "My Father". Disciples, even when they pray on their own, are never isolated nor they are orphans; they are always members of the Lord's family.
In praying together, beside the mystery of being children of God, there is also the mystery of brotherhood, as the Father of the Church said: "You cannot have God as father without having the church as mother". When praying together, the Holy Spirit assembles the disciples in the upper room together with Mary, the Lord's mother, so that they may direct their gaze towards the Lord's face and learn from Him the secret of his Heart.
The Communities of Sant'Egidio all over the world gather in the various places of prayer and lay before the Lord the hopes and the sufferings of the tired, exhausted crowds of which the Gospel speaks ( Mat. 9: 3-7 ), In these ancient crowds we can see the huge masses of the modern cities, the millions of refugees who continue to flee their countries, the poor, relegated to the very fringe of life and all those who are waiting for someone to take care of them. Praying together includes the cry, the invocation, the aspiration, the desire for peace, the healing and salvation of the men and women of this world. Prayer is never in vain; it rises ceaselessly to the Lord so that anguish is turned into hope, tears into joy, despair into happiness, and solitude into communion. May the Kingdom of God come soon among people!
For the sick, in memory of the dead, for peace
