Feast of Saint Mark, Evangelist

Lectionary: 555

So humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God,
that he may exalt you in due time.
Cast all your worries upon him because he cares for you.

Harold Bloom, an American literary critic, has written that the greatest authors are those who disappear into their work; and he especially admires William Shakespeare. Which of Shakespeare’s greatest characters are most like William S? Was he Hamlet, or Lear or Prospero? Was he Henry V with a bit of Richard II? Was he disappointed in love like Othello or betrayed like Troilus? What was his religious belief in an age when it made a difference whether you were Catholic or Protestant? Scholars have scraped away at the shards of evidence and know almost nothing about the Bard. He disappeared into the greatest writing of the English language.

Bloom considers Shakespeare’s evasiveness his greatest virtue. It might be called irony or humility. It is irony in the sense that the author distances himself so far behind his writing that the subject – Hamlet or Lear or Brutus – becomes more real than the playwright.

We can say the same about the Evangelist Saint Mark. Who was he? Where did he live? How was he educated? “John Mark” appears in the New Testament as a disciple of Saint Paul and Saint Peter but there is no clear evidence it’s the same man.

Ancient painters sometimes placed a self-portrait in a corner of a large painting; it’s possible that Saint Mark placed himself in the passion narrative of his Gospel, chapter 14, verse 51:

Now a young man followed him wearing nothing but a linen cloth about his body. They seized him, but he left the cloth behind and ran off naked.

The one who appears in the Gospel of Saint Mark, of course, is Jesus. His character is clear and forceful; his authority is overwhelming. As in the other canonical gospels, the Jesus of Saint Mark’s gospel stands head and shoulders above everyone else. He has no equal. The reader and the listening, attentive congregation are so fascinated by him they forget the evangelist altogether.

When we celebrate the feast of Saint Mark we celebrate the mysterious genius who humbly disappears into his work. If he is the naked disciple, he deems himself the most abject of all the disciples who fled from the Garden. 

We should ask God to give us a measure of his penitential, evangelical spirit. Those who encounter us meet the Lord and recognize him as the Son of God. Like that of Saint Mark, my life is not about me; and my gospel is Jesus.