Happy feast day of St. Mark, the briefest of the Gospel writers.  St. Mark is commonly identified as:

• The figure John Mark from the book of Acts
• The figure referred to in St. Paul’s epistles simply as “Mark”
• The figure in St. Peter’s epistles also referred to simply as “Mark”
• The author of the second gospel
• The first bishop of Alexandria, Egypt
• The lion

Today the Jews ask Jesus: “How long are you going to keep us in suspense?”  God has a way of keeping us in suspense.  Maybe that’s a good thing.  Nah–surely it is. Because it helps us live more fully in the present moment. You never know what God might do next.

Jesus said: “….the sheep follow him, because they recognize his voice. But they will not follow a stranger; they will run away from him, because they do not recognize the voice of strangers.”  To what extent is God a stranger in my life?  A good question to contemplate today.

You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. -Anne Lamott

What a beautiful quote in my email inbox this morning: “When we accept our faults, we gain compassion for the faults of others.” John Kuypers

St Stephen, the first martyr, has some strong words in our first reading: “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always oppose the Holy Spirit; you are just like your ancestors.”  Yikes.  Pray God no one would have just cause to utter those words to us.

Our psalm reads: “Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord!”  Blessed indeed