Today the Church remembers the great evangelist St. Mark, who is best remembered as the one to whom the Gospel of Mark is attributed. He was a disciple of St. Peter and, according to tradition, gathered much of the material for his Gospel from the sermons of the Apostles himself. His iconological symbol is a lion for various reasons, but for our purposes of reflecting on Christ the Good Shepherd we can enjoy the fact that our Shepherd has seen fit not only to appoint fellow herdsmen to guard His flock from the prowling lion that is our great enemy, but He has called lions of His own into His service.
“Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature,” He tells them. ROAR mightily, such that, impelled by the Holy Spirit of God the roar of the Gospel will echo across time to shake souls and terrify demons even into the present age. The Lion of the Tribe of Judah (Revelation 5:5) gathers His pride around Him today, the glory of the Resurrection gleaming about Him like a mane of light, promising them victory and power when they serve Him, charging them with the protection of His flock when He returns home to His Father.
We are told that the apostles “went forth and preached everywhere”; Mark himself is believed to have been the founder of the Church in Alexandria, which rose to great prominence in the Early Church. Wherever you are in the world today, the Catholic faith was brought there by one of the lions of Christ, roaring the Good News of the Gospel, even if it cost them their lives. What a debt we owe to men and women like St. Mark, whose courage and fidelity to the Good Shepherd brought us into His flock, baptizing our ancestors so that the Gospel would be handed on from generation to generation.
Does our faith in the Good Shepherd give us courage, as it gave St. Mark? In our deeds are we like lions (1 Maccabees 3:4), just, confident and unafraid (Proverbs 28:1)? Shall we follow the Lord “who roars like a lion” and whose “children shall come trembling…” in awe of His majesty and power “…when he roars” (Hosea 11:10)? Our Good Shepherd is also our mighty protector!
“For thus says the Lord to me: As a lion or its young growling over the prey, with a band of shepherds assembled against it, is neither dismayed by their shouts nor cowed by their noise, so shall the Lord of hosts come down to wage war upon Mount Zion, upon its height” (Isaiah 31:4). This is the Jesus of St. Mark; this is our Jesus, whose meekness undercut the Devil’s pride to his utter humiliation, and whose might slew the wolves of death and the serpents of sin with but a single roar of truth.
St. Mark, lion of Christ, pray for us!