Feast of Saint Mark
Today is my patronal feast day. Saint Mark the Evangelist, cousin of Barnabus (Collosians 4:10) and whom St. Peter calls his son (1 Peter 5:13). When, on the occasion of the famine of A.D. 45-46, Barnabas and Saul had completed their ministration in Jerusalem, they took Mark with them on their return to Antioch (Acts 12:25). Not long after, when they started on St. Paul's first Apostolic journey, they had Mark with them as some sort of assistant ( hupereten , Acts 13:5). The context of Acts 13:5, suggests that he helped even in preaching the Word. When Paul and Barnabas resolved to push on from Perga into central Asia Minor, Mark, departed from them, if indeed he had not already done so at Paphos, and returned to Jerusalem (Acts 13:13). Papias (Eusebius, Church History III.39) asserts not later than A.D. 130, on the authority of an "elder", that Mark had been the interpreter ( hermeneutes ) of Peter, and wrote down accurately, though not in order, the teaching of Peter. A...