November 23, 2013 – Revelations 9 – 10

The plagues are sent to trouble those that did not have the mark on the forehead.  It makes me wonder if I have a mark on my forehead and all the things I have done in the Church that touch my forehead.  The first is Baptism, with oil on your forehead and water being poured on your forehead.  Baptism leaves a mark on you that will never go away.  Confirmation also marks your forehead.  Whenever you bless yourself, or start the sign of the cross for that matter, you start with your forehead.  On Ash Wednesday you are marked on your forehead with ashes.  Whether any of these are “the mark” or whether they all focus on your forehead because that is where we are to be marked, I don’t know if there is any connection there.

I do interpret a “mark” as an outward sign that you belong to God.  People want you to put your religion in a private compartment and keep it to yourselves.  When the plagues come, how will they know you are Christian if you don’t show them?  If the world doesn’t see your “mark”, if they can’t tell you are Christian, how will the locust.  On Ash Wednesday, if you go to Mass in the morning, you walk around with an outward mark and people do notice.  What is your outward mark every other day?  Are we just banking on the end or the plague coming on Ash Wednesday?