Mark appears in the New Testament as John Mark, a companion of Barnabas and Paul on missionary travel and later a helper close to Peter, who calls him "my son" at the end of his first letter. Papias, writing early in the second century, records the tradition that Mark set down what Peter preached, and the Church has read the second Gospel in that light ever since. It is the shortest of the four and the most rapid, driving toward the centurion's confession at the Cross: "Truly this man was the Son of God." The feast is celebrated with red vestments, the color of martyrdom, since ancient tradition holds that Mark died a martyr at Alexandria, the church whose foundation is attributed to him. His relics were taken to Venice in the ninth century, and he remains that city's patron. In Christian art his symbol is the winged lion, one of the four living creatures of Ezekiel and Revelation assigned to the evangelists; the lion was traditionally connected with the voice crying in the wilderness with which his Gospel opens. At Mass the Gospel is the missionary commission at the end of Mark, and the first reading is Peter's counsel to clothe oneself with humility, ending with the greeting that names Mark. In the Lectionary's three-year Sunday cycle the Gospel of Mark is read in Year B, supplemented by the sixth chapter of John. April 25 was historically the day of the Greater Litanies, a Roman procession of intercession for the fruits of the earth; that observance is no longer part of the General Roman Calendar but may be kept in local usage as one of the days of prayer for the harvest.

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April 25

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