HOMILY FOR THE FEAST OF SAINT MARK THE EVANGELIST, 4TH THURSDAY OF EASTER YEAR B

HOMILY FOR THE FEAST OF SAINT MARK THE EVANGELIST, 4TH THURSDAY OF EASTER YEAR B

HOMILY THEME: GO OUT TO THE WHOLE WORLD; PROCLAIM THE GOOD NEWS

1 Peter 5:5-14, Psalm 88:2-3,6-7,16-17, Mark 16:15-20

BY: Fr Deotacious Chikontwe SMA

INTRODUCTION

Good morning my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the Feast of Mark the Evangelist. Mark has a special place among the evangelists because he was the first person to write a gospel. Up until the time Mark wrote, there was no continuous written account of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. So we can be grateful to Mark for his written gospel. Others followed his example, leaving us with four gospels altogether. However, Mark was the pioneer; he was the first to break this new ground. His gospel is the shortest of the four, but, nonetheless, it is a very powerful telling of the Jesus story. More than the other evangelists, Mark highlights that Jesus’ preaching and living of the gospel challenged the status quo and brought great hostility down on his head, resulting in his crucifixion. Mark also emphasizes that being a disciple of this Jesus, living by his values, will often mean travelling the same.

FROM OUR FIRST READING
In our first reading today, we heard how Peter the Apostle spoke of the importance of humility as being a hallmark of being a Christian faithful and believer of the Lord. One cannot truly claim to be faithful to God and yet at the same time not being a person full of humility and obedience to God. At the same time, Peter also reminded the faithful people of God that the Lord was always with them and regardless of the challenges, trials and sufferings that they may all have to endure amidst their missions and lives, but in the end, should they remain faithful to the Lord, then they shall all be triumphant together with the Lord. At the end of that reading, Peter makes reference to ‘my son Mark’. We are probably to understand ‘my son’ as ‘my spiritual son’. The Mark that Peter refers to may well be the author of the first gospel. That same early tradition places Mark in the church of Rome, the city where Peter was crucified, the city where the church experienced the first real persecution lead by the Roman state.

FROM OUR GOSPEL READING
But what I admire most of St. Mark is what he recorded in today’s gospel of the words of Jesus telling His disciples before He ascended into heaven to ‘go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature,” (v. 15). And so I would invite you to reflect on the three important words that are found in this statement of Jesus of sending His disciples, like us, into the whole world.

1. The first word is “Go.” Christ Himself has given us an example of carrying out the mission of going out to other towns as He said to Peter: “Let us go on to the neighboring towns so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that it what I came out to do,” (Mark 1:38).
2. The second word is “Proclaim.” Our desire to proclaim Christ has led us to heed Jesus’ command to “go.” But what is it that we want to proclaim? Who is the Christ we are proclaiming? The more that we know Him through our prayer, the more we will want to multiply ourselves to write, preach, and teach Christ, to go out and proclaim Him with our lives, with our words and through our apostolate.
3. The third word is “Whole Creation…every creature.” Being disciples of Jesus is not a weekend task but we are His disciples twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year for the Holy Spirit works twenty four hours a day for this mission. If we love, we will always be attentive of everything speak to us of the mission of God.

CONCLUSION
We are challenged to become one of Jesus’ disciples and conform our lives to that of the suffering Messiah and Son of God. “Just as the truth of Jesus is found only in the cross, so is the secret to discipleship. To be a follower of Jesus is to share intimately in his life and destiny” (Healy, The Gospel of Mark, p. 24).

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