A reading of the holy gospel according to Mark. Jesus appeared to the 11 and said to them, go into the world and proclaim the good news to all creation. The man who believes in it and accepts baptism will be saved. The man who refuses to believe in it will be condemned. Signs like these will accompany those who have professed their faith.
They will use my name to expel demons. They will speak entirely new languages. They will be able to handle serpents. They will be able to drink deadly poison without harm, and the sick upon whom they lay their hands will recover. Then after speaking to them, the lord Jesus was taken up into heaven and took his seat at god's right hand.
The 11 went forth and preached everywhere. The lord continued to work with him throughout and to confirm the message through the signs which accompanied them. And this is the gospel of the lord according to saint Mark. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen.
Today, we honor saint Mark as if we could honor him, but we do our best. And it's an occasion to recall a little bit about this evangelist, the author of the second gospel. It's not the most popular of the four gospels. It is not used as much as Luke, for example, in the liturgy. However, it is special.
It has its own characteristics. It has been called the Roman gospel because there seems to be some reason to think that Mark see, Mark was it was Mark did not know Jesus Christ personally. He was a young man at the time. That Mark drew much of his information from Peter and that Mark went to Rome with Peter and that it was under the that it was with information that Mark got from Peter that Mark wrote his gospel. One reason for that thought is that this gospel shows in detail, in extraordinary detail, events having to do with Peter.
In other words, they are the way they're described, the adjectives used and so forth, suggest that this was an eyewitness account. Well, Mark was no eyewitness. And so this gospel has a special meaning. You just notice how straightforward this is. Compare the way Mark writes with the way John writes It's a different different world, to different kind of writing, different kind of thinking.
Mark is factual. Now there are four gospels. We call three of them synoptics. Synoptics, meaning with a single view, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Because those three together give us, for the most part, three separate accounts which have great similarities.
It's like three witnesses seeing the same thing and then writing three three accounts, where Saint John's gospel is is quite different. Just think of what we've been reading the last week or so from Saint John. You will see how different it is. Now these differences are what many grasp upon to attack and destroy the credibility of the gospels. Of course there are differences.
How could it not be so if you had four men writing individually of events of which they knew in one way or another? Of course there would be differences. Now that brings us into this matter of inspiration. Well, remember inspiration doesn't cover every single item which is in the gospels. That is an extreme fundamentalist view.
Some have held that, of course, but it's absurd. So, I think what we greatly miss just remember this. If you do not know, to some extent, personally, the gospels of Jesus Christ, then how do you know Jesus? By inspiration? How?
You read yesterday's paper about these ladies, I think out in Missouri or someplace West of Cumberland, where they they they were inspired by the holy ghost to take off their clothes and spread mustard over themselves and parade it in the streets. They were inspired too, you know. Do we expect on this good fundamentalist Protestant point of view that every single word in the gospel remember, when people talk like this, for the most part they're talking about translations, and the translation is not inspired. It's the original text which has the inspiration behind it because every translation is an interpretation of the translator. So you can see this fundamentalist position that every single thing in the Old Testament, the New Testament is the word of God and therefore is absolutely authentic and true.
Oh, is infantile. So what we are talking about is what truth do these four evangelists tell us, these four reporters of the good news? And the only way you can get that is by reading it. How else are you going to do it? Now here is where many non Catholics and Protestants have it all over us for certain very definite clear historical reasons.
They have made much more of the book than we have. The church has the Catholic church has made much more of tradition, of the living voice of the church. But there is no exclusives these are not exclusive. It isn't that we have to make a choice between one or the other. There's the horrible mistake.
We should choose them both. We should not sit back very quietly and passively like a bunch of empty containers and have this poured into us about once a week or so or when we go to church. What do you do personally to have a personal familiarity? Notice the word I used there, familiarity with Jesus Christ. And how will you know Jesus Christ?
Well, you can sit back and you can say, I'll wait till I'm inspired and he'll give me what I need to know. Fine. That's not the way I think our blessed lord wants it to be. That is not the way he he acted in his own lifetime by a long shot. It is not the way it normally happens.
Faith comes from hearing, Saint Paul says. From what? From a living voice. That is very true, and let us never forget it. But that living voice, what is it based on?
And so I urge you, here you have you remember, when we talk about the gospels, we're not talking about the Britannica or the New Catholic Encyclopedia. We are not talking about contemporary a novel of 500 pages. You're simply talking about a a tiny book. You can read it in a few hours at the most, and it's the only way that you will get a picture of Jesus Christ. You will never get it if you simply get a piecemeal from the pulpit.
It won't work. You'll get dribs and drabs, but you will not have familiarity with Jesus Christ as he is depicted in the four gospels. And so on this feast of Saint Mark, the way we can best honor Saint Mark the evangelist and martyr you know, he he died in that's what is traditionally said. He died in Alexandria, and he's supposed to be buried in Saint Mark's Venice in that great cathedral there. And the way we can honor him most is by using what he wrote, by reading it, and by reading what his three colleagues wrote.
And as a martyr, we can try to follow him by having familiarity with Jesus Christ evident in our daily lives. In the name of the father and of the son and holy spirit. Amen.