St. Mark the Evangelist

This past week, my class read Mark's gospel, and we made a visit to the Basilica San Marco, near the Piazza Venezia. For those of you who don't know (as I didn't before I started prepping for this course!), St. Mark is the patron of Venice. In fact, the people of Venice are so serious about St. Mark that in the ninth century, a couple of Venitian merchants snuck into Alexandria and stole Mark's remains to bring him to Venice. The Basilica of San Marco in Rome was founded by Pope St. Mark in 336, and an unlikely legend says that it was built on the very spot where St. Mark the Evangelist lived when he was in Rome. The church was rebuilt in the 5th century, restored and improved in the 8th and 9th, and further transformed in the 15th and 18th. Some fragments of the 4th century church have been excavated beneath the current structure.

Our visit to San Marco was a lesson not simply in the life, death, and relics of the saint, but also in how life in Italy sometimes doesn't work quite the way we Americans expect. I had checked and found that the Basilica is open every Tuesday from 8:30-12:30--perfect for my 9am Tuesday classtime. I got there by about 8:40, hoping to take a quick peek inside before the students arrived. I arrived to find the gates closed and locked. It was particularly frustrating to look through the bars and see the sign that listed the same opening times I had found previously. I even had a chance to commiserate with an Italian gentleman who also stopped and looked longingly at the sign. "Non e aperta?" No, I guess not.

My students arrived and I decided to switch the class around a bit. We found an out of the way spot to gather and open up our texts and dive into Mark's gospel. We've also been reading Craig Hovey's To Share in the Body: A Theology of Martyrdom for Today's Church. In this text, Hovey argues that Mark's gospel, written for a persecuted church, is also a timeless reminder that all Christians of all times and places are called to be witnesses to Christ, even to the point of suffering for our faith if that is what is asked of us. It has been powerful to be reading this text here in Rome, where there are relics and reminders of martyrs around every corner. But I'm particularly glad to be reading this text with students (along with Scripture and with Scripture scholarship) because it really pushes them to see that martyrdom is not only a historical reality from a certain era of the life of the Church, but is theologically important in every time and in every place.

Returning to the church about 10:45, we found it open and were able to go right in. The students immediately noted the contrast with Santa Maria Maggiore--so much quieter, less crowded--and seemed to appreciate being away from the bustle of some of the more popular tourist sites we've been to. It's funny, San Marco almost didn't make the cut (so many sites to see here, so little time!), but I'm really glad it did. One of the first things we read this semester was Dei Verbum, the Second Vatican Council's Constitution on Divine Revelation (required reading for most Catholic scripture classes, I imagine!). I thought this would help us understand Scripture's importance in the life of the Church, which, of course, it does. But the council fathers saw fit to speak of tradition hand in hand with Scripture, and the way that the Church's collective understanding increases over time:

For there is a growth in the understanding of the realities and the words which have been handed down. This happens through the contemplation and study made by believers, who treasure these things in their hearts (see Luke, 2:19, 51) through a penetrating understanding of the spiritual realities which they experience, and through the preaching of those who have received through Episcopal succession the sure gift of truth. For as the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her. (DV, #8)

What a gift to be able to visit these holy places where the sense of "the centuries succeed[ing] one another" is palpable, and the witness of believers from so many different eras seem to overlap upon one another.