FEAST, ST. MARK, EVANGELIST
Mark 16:15-20
 
One word well describes the life of a genuine believer in Christ, and that is: peculiar. The life of a genuine believer, while normal in most respects, is strikingly different because it carries a clear message, a message that challenges the beholder. Most believers do not
perform wonders like those that accompanied the first disciples, even though in our day, the charisms of healing and other such miraculous interventions still accompany the Church. But other signs, extraordinary in their own way, also accompany a genuine believer, namely an interior and supernatural peace, a sense of high purpose, a delicate charity, a more than human joy, a light in one's eyes, and
that ineffable quality of someone who converses regularly with God. These qualities are peculiar indeed to worldly minded people.
 
Faith is our response to the God who reveals himself and gives himself to us. To say "I believe" is to say "yes" to God with one's whole self, mind, heart, will, memory, imagination, passions, hopes, and dreams. Our faith should never remain static or stagnant. God gives this to us as a fire in our heart. Our faith should prompt us to action. We express it in the Creed, we celebrate it in the liturgy, we
live it observing the commandments, in prayer, and in our efforts at evangelization. Faith expresses itself in action.
 
What are the signs that accompany our faith? Are they many or few? The urgency to do apostolate comes from within, from the love that each one of us professes for Jesus in our heart. Without a true love for Jesus and our neighbor, we cannot be an authentic apostle. Being an apostle, then, is an essential component of being a Christian. Preaching the Gospel by word and example is therefore not just another task among many. It is the mission that our whole life should focus on. We cannot be an apostle just for hours or days at a time. Either we are an apostle or we are not, period. Either we have a message or we don't. Either our faith hangs out all over, and is accompanied by clear signs and manifestations, especially a genuine charity, or it is a dead faith.
 
We share in the great task of spreading the Kingdom of God. Sometimes we are afraid to be a witness to the faith that we profess. In these moments, we should turn to the Lord courage, and also with the joy that comes from professing his name and sharing with others the gift of gifts, that of knowing and loving him.
 
We celebrate today the feast of St. Mark, author of one of the synoptic gospels. He was not a historian nor was he directly interested in Jesus’ history. Like the other evangelists, he wanted to proclaim Jesus as Messiah of Israel, as the Savior of the world.
 
Like St. Mark, may we boldly proclaim Jesus as our Savior and Lord.