April 25, 2024

Hello John,

In case you missed it, there are two special events happening in May, dedicated to celebrating Mary and the rosary!

First, we invite you to further your spiritual and prayer journey by joining us throughout the month of May, for Praying the Rosary. By participating, you will receive an email every morning, with a video to guide you. Click here to learn more: Praying the Rosary. 

Second, we invite you to join us for a LIVE event happening on our Facebook page May 1st, featuring the artist and authors behind Universal Mother: A Journal for Finding Yourself in Mary.  The authors will be discussing the book and the connection with Mother Mary, just in time for Mother's Day!

I hope you can join us for both of these special events!

Blessings, 

Tara Hemelgarn
Marketing Manager

Saint of the Day for April 25: Mark

(? – c. April 25, 68)

Saint Mark’s Story

Most of what we know about Mark comes directly from the New Testament. He is usually identified with the Mark of Acts 12:12. When Saint Peter escaped from prison, he went to the home of Mark’s mother.

Paul and Barnabas took him along on the first missionary journey, but for some reason Mark returned alone to Jerusalem. It is evident, from Paul’s refusal to let Mark accompany him on the second journey despite Barnabas’s insistence, that Mark had displeased Paul. Because Paul later asks Mark to visit him in prison, we may assume the trouble did not last long.

The oldest and the shortest of the four Gospels, the Gospel of Mark emphasizes Jesus’s rejection by humanity while being God’s triumphant envoy. Probably written for gentile converts in Rome—after the death of Peter and Paul sometime between A.D. 60 and 70—Mark’s Gospel is the gradual manifestation of a “scandal”: a crucified Messiah.

Evidently a friend of Mark—calling him “my son”—Peter is only one of this Gospel’s sources, others being the Church in Jerusalem (Jewish roots), and the Church at Antioch (largely Gentile).

Like another Gospel writer Luke, Mark was not one of the 12 apostles. We cannot be certain whether he knew Jesus personally. Some scholars feel that the evangelist is speaking of himself when describing the arrest of Jesus in Gethsemane: “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” (Mark 14:51-52).

Others hold Mark to be the first bishop of Alexandria, Egypt. Venice, famous for the Piazza San Marco, claims Mark as its patron saint; the large basilica there is believed to contain his remains.

A winged lion is Mark’s symbol. The lion derives from Mark’s description of John the Baptist as a “voice of one crying out in the desert” (Mark 1:3), which artists compared to a roaring lion. The wings come from the application of Ezekiel’s vision of four winged creatures to the evangelists.

Reflection

Mark fulfilled in his life what every Christian is called to do: proclaim to all people the Good News that is the source of salvation. In particular, Mark’s way was by writing. Others may proclaim the Good News by music, drama, poetry, or by teaching children around a family table.

Saint Mark is the Patron Saint of:

Notaries
Venice

We invite you to join us for the Month of May in your prayerful journey by Praying the Rosary!

Francis placed the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father, at the center of community life. Francis enjoined his followers to internalize the wisdom of Jesus’s prayer by regular repetition, letting the words soak in so that they might come to define their whole lives. Francis and his companions regularly sang the Lord’s Prayer. To Francis and Clare, God was fatherly, lovingly creating the world and powerfully loving the world. Listen with heart, mind, and soul to Jesus’s Prayer:

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done;
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power and the glory,
now and forever.

Always fresh and always new, the Lord’s Prayer evolves along with our growing understanding of the universe and the significance of the nonhuman world.

—from the book Simplicity, Spirituality, Service: The Timeless Wisdom of Francis, Clare, and Bonaventureby Bruce G. Epperly

Save the Date for this Live Event,

just in time for Mother's Day!

Author and artist Holly Schapker, along with author and art historian Cecelia Dorger, will be discussing their newly released book: Universal Mother - A Journal for Finding Yourself in Mary, moderated by Maureen O'Brien.

It's happening LIVE on our Facebook page on Wednesday, May 1st, at 12:30 PM Eastern Standard time.

This newsletter is not free to produce! Please consider making a donation to help us in our efforts to share God's love in the spirit of Saint Francis.