Mark

Vita

Saint Mark the Evangelist with the lion, a triangular spandrel painting by Felice Campi (1809), executed as a companion to the central vault fresco *Coronation of the Madonna* in… Felice Campi · Public domain

Saint Mark, known in Latin as Marcus, was a native of Rome, the son of a man named Priscus. Little is recorded of his youth, yet the tradition of the Church places him among the Roman clergy who rose in the years after the Diocletianic persecution, when the faith had been legalized under Constantine and the See of Peter was consolidating its pastoral life.

On 18 January 336 he succeeded Pope Sylvester I as Bishop of Rome. His pontificate lasted only some eight or nine months, a short span set amid the lingering Arian controversies of the age; the sources do not show him taking a public part in those debates. According to the Liber Pontificalis, he issued a constitution that invested the Bishop of Ostia with the pallium and confirmed that prelate's privilege of consecrating newly elected popes—a practice later attested by Saint Augustine. He is also associated with the beginnings of the Depositio episcoporum and Depositio martyrum, the early anniversary lists of bishops and martyrs that ordered the Church's memory of the holy dead.

In the same spirit of building up the visible Church, Mark founded two sacred places in Rome: the Basilica of San Marco (the Titulus Marci), raised near the Capitol, and a cemetery church over the Catacomb of Balbina on the Via Ardeatina, on land obtained through imperial donation. These works expressed his care for the worship of God and for the burial of the faithful in peace.

Mark died of natural causes on 7 October 336 and was buried in the catacomb of Balbina that he had prepared. In later centuries his relics were translated first to Velletri and then, in 1145, to the Basilica of San Marco in Rome, where they rest beneath the altar. The Church has kept his feast on the day of his death, and he has been especially venerated at places such as the Abbadia San Salvatore on Monte Amiata. His sanctity is that of a shepherd who, in a brief hour, strengthened the order, liturgy, and memory of the Roman Church.

May Saint Mark intercede for us, and may we imitate today his quiet fidelity in the duties God entrusts to us.

St Mark, Hamilton Terrace, St Johns Wood - Statue John Salmon · CC BY-SA 2.0

Dalle Vite dei Santi di Butler Vite dei Santi di Butler

NOVEMBER 1 — ST. HAROLD VI., KING OF DENMARK, M

The archbishops of Bremen from St. Willehad the apostle of Saxony, and St. Anscharius, the first archbishop of Bremen, labored successively in planting the faith in the northern parts of Europe. Eric the Younger, king of Denmark, was converted to the faith by St. Anscharius. But his successors persecuted the Christians till Fronto VI. king of Denmark, brother and successor of Swein I., embraced the faith of Christ in his wars in England, and sent an ambassador to pope Agapetus II., about the year 950; but died before the return of the embassy, so that his conversion produced little fruit in that nation. Gormo III., the third king from him, was a cruel persecutor of the Christians, and demolished a church which they had built at Sleswic. But marrying Thyra, an English princess, he promised to become a Christian. His son and successor, Harold VI., surnamed Blodrand, embraced the faith with great ardor, and filled his dominions with churches and preachers; in which he was chiefly assisted by Adalbag, the most zealous archbishop of Bremen, the seventh from St. Anscharius, contemporary with Otho the Great, who, about the same time, founded the city and church of Magdeburgh. Adalbag instituted three bishoprics in Jutland, which this king endowed. When he had reigned many years, his son Swein, surnamed Tweskegk, who remained at that time an idolater,* stirred up the people to demand the restoration of their idols, and their ancient liberty to plunder their neighbors. The king was wounded in battle by one Toko, a leader of the malecontents, and died some days after of his wounds, on the 1st of November, 980. He was buried in the church of the Holy Trinity, which he had founded at Roschilde, and which continues to this day the burial-place of the Danish kings. On a pillar in the choir, over the grave of this king, is his effigies, with this inscription: “Harold king of Dacia, (or Denmark,) England, and Norway, founder of this church.” Though many historians style him martyr,

Fonte: Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints

Fonti: Wikidata Wikipedia Causes of Saints Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints Anche elencato Wikidata GCatholic

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