Mark Chapter 14: 1-31

For Chapter Fourteen, we have two podcasts to proclaim the Gospel. We learn, at the start of the chapter, that the chief priests and scribes are plotting to kill Jesus but are wary of doing so before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. A woman anoints Jesus with ointment of pure nard in Bethany and we learn that Judas, one of the twelve, will betray Jesus. Jesus shares the Passover with his disciples in the upper room and institutes the Lord’s Supper. We end this podcast reading with Jesus foretelling Peter’s denial: “Truly I tell you, this very night, before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times.” About Reading Mark in Advent is an 18-part podcast series that sees us upload a chapter of Mark’s Gospel each weekday of the season. With a global pandemic sweeping the world and lockdowns and restrictions placed on our everyday living – not to mention patterns of worship and prayer – this is very much “the Word in Lockdown”. But the Word of God is never locked down, isolated and contained. As Pope Francis says: “The word of God is alive and active (Hebrews 4:12); it does not die, nor does it age, but it remains for ever (cf. 1 Peter 1:25). It stays young in the presence of all that passes away (cf. Matthew 25:35) and preserves those who put it into practice from inner aging.”