We celebrate the Feast of St. Mark on April 25th.  

St. Mark was an evangelist or Gospel writer. His is the shortest and the oldest of the Gospels and was a great contribution to the Church. It included oral and written traditions concerning the words and deeds of Jesus. He shows Jesus as the suffering Son of God. Mark writes that anyone who wishes to follow Jesus must accept the cross.

Mark was not one of the 12 apostles but was a member of the first Christian community. He was a traveling companion and assistant of Paul and Barnabas on the first missionary journey.

Others hold Mark to be the first bishop of Alexandria, Egypt, where he was martyred. 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.