Mass for the Neo-Catechumenal Communities
Feast of Saint Mark, the Evangelist

Celebrated by Archbishop Denis Hart
at Saint Paul’s Church, Coburg,
on Wednesday, 26th April, 2006, at 8.00pm

Introduction

My dear Brothers and Sisters,

I am delighted to be with you as we celebrate the Feast of Saint Mark, disciple of Saint Peter, and author of the second Gospel.

We are regularly reminded that the Gospel of Saint Mark gives us the clearest picture of the teaching of Saint Peter about Our Lord.  It is significant too because it was written as the first of all the Gospels and is the earliest life of Jesus, which has come down to us.

Cardinal Newman wrote, “The encouragement which we derive from Saint Mark’s history is that the feeblest among us may through God’s grace become strong.  The warning to be drawn from it is to distrust ourselves and not to despise those who are weak, but bear their burdens and help them forward so as to restore them.”  (J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons II, 16)

That we may grow in the light of the Lord, let us call to mind our sins.

Homily

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

It is most appropriate as I speak to you that tonight’s Readings couple the frailties of humanity and the power of God, linked together in the mission, which God has given to each of us.  Saint Peter himself reminded us that God will always favour the humble.  In standing up to the devil despite our own misgivings, we are encouraged to be strong in faith so that our suffering will be short lived and we will be transformed by the grace of the Lord.  Peter refers to the constancy of God’s power as he prepares us for the mission given to each of us.  In the Gospel there is a radical challenge.  “Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.”

We cannot escape the wonderful fact that Jesus gave a mission to the Church and to each of us in the Church, to proclaim the Good News.  You as members of the neo-catechumenal communities are nourished by the Word of God and by living fully, both the fact and the call of baptism.

I would make four brief points:-

1. It is the duty of the Church and of every Christian to tell the story of the Good News of Jesus to those who have never heard it.  We are heralds of Jesus Christ.
2. The Church has a healing task.  We are concerned with healing people’s bodies and minds to bring health to the body and to the soul as Jesus willed.
3. When Jesus gave his apostles power over snakes and poison, he gives a Pope a power to cope with all that life offers, which other people cannot possess.
4. The Church is never alone in doing its work.  The Lord is still the Lord of the Church; Jesus is still our Saviour.  The immediate response of the apostles where they preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the Word by the signs that accompanied it, are an eloquent testimony to what can be achieved with deep faith.

My dear friends, I thank you for your faithfulness to the Word and to its challenge, for your readiness to teach the faith.  Our Lord told the apostles that his Father would give them an eloquence and a conviction that none of our enemies would be able to contradict.  The Spirit of the Father works with those who spread the faith.

Humbly, like Saint Peter, we serve each other and when Saint Peter says to bow down before the power of God, he reminds us that in all we do God is working and showing his light.  The challenge for us in our day is to see his power, humbly to obey it, to trust and know that it will never desert us.

May Jesus who sent out his apostles, find through each of us here in this room a generous herald of the truth, mercy and wonder of our God, whose Word we have heard and whose sacrifice and sacrament we celebrate in this Eucharist.

+ Denis J. Hart,
Archbishop of Melbourne.