16th.
Sunday, Year (C)
(Genesis
18:1-10; Colossians 1:24-28; Luke 10:38-42)
The
Gospel reading told us:
Jesus entered a certain
village and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house;
and
in the first reading we were told of a theophany in which Abraham:
(Seeing) three men standing nearby ran from the
entrance of (his) tent to greet them; and bowing to the ground, he said:
“Sir, if I may ask you this favour, please do not go on past your servant.
Let some water be brought, that you may bathe your feet, and then rest
yourselves under the tree. Now that you
have come this close to your servant, let me bring you a little food that you
may refresh yourselves; and afterward you may go on your way.” “Very well,”
they replied, “do as you have said.”
Both
accounts told of a sincere welcome being given to divine and angelic visitors. Abraham, on the one hand, was as attentive as
he could possibly have been:
He took butter and milk and the calf which he had
prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree as they
ate.
Martha,
on the other hand, in our Gospel reading, was not so selflessly whole-hearted:
(She) was burdened with much serving, and Jesus said
to her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.”
What
was Martha so anxious about? First of
all, something that perhaps she did not recognize, namely, her desire not only
to prepare well for Jesus, but also to be seen to prepare well.
There
was something else and Jesus had noticed that she was not only “anxious” but
also "worried" about something.
Now Martha had a sister, a younger sister, Mary, and it may perhaps have
been the case that Martha, being the elder, and also a dynamic sort of person,
was accustomed to taking or giving a lead, and the difficulty, the "worrying"
aspect for her today, was the fact that Mary was not following her lead, for:
Mary sat beside the Lord at His feet listening to Him
speak.
And
so, it was not possible for Martha to be whole-hearted in her welcome of Jesus
because she was both concerned about her own image, and, at the same time,
irritated by what she considered to be her younger sister’s lack of
consideration; and being an honest -- even blunt -- soul, could not restrain
herself from making known to Jesus what was, indeed, troubling her:
She approached Him and said, "Lord, do You not
care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me."
Looking
again at Abraham, we see that he had been well rewarded for his hospitality and
attentiveness; but not only Abraham, for Sarah too had shared fully with
Abraham by preparing food for the guests in the background. Both, therefore, had been rewarded with the
promise of a son, the child for whom they had prayed long and hard but who,
they had come to think, would never be theirs.
In
the Gospel story, however, although Jesus appreciated Martha's work and
solicitude, He considered Mary's attentive love and self-forgetfulness to be of
another order, and so, speaking as bluntly as Martha herself had just done, He
said:
Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be
taken from her.
Mary’s
selfless commitment to, and appreciation of, the Word that Jesus was speaking, was
a choice valid for eternity and it won her a blessing that would never be revoked. Her love for the beauty and authority of
Jesus’ message caused her to forget herself; whereas Martha, though she truly
loved Jesus, most certainly could not forget herself: she could not humbly work
whole-heartedly, as Sarah, Abraham’s wife had done before, when plagued with
the thought that she was not being sufficiently appreciated.
Now
we are all here at Mass to welcome Jesus -- all of us, I myself, just as much
as you – and the welcome we give is, as our readings show, mysteriously
significant and important. Each of us must
welcome Jesus, first of all, into our own heart, and then, all of us together,
into our parish community and thereby into His universal Church, and finally,
let us never forget it, through us and His Church He must be welcomed into our
world:
Lord, may this sacrifice
which has made our peace with you, advance the peace and salvation of all the
world.
At
this moment then, the Universal Church and the whole of mankind, are relying,
to a certain extent, upon us, and upon the sort of welcome we give to Our Lord:
because, the deeper, the more sincere and whole-hearted the welcome, the
greater the blessing, for ourselves, for the Church, and for the world.
The
apostle Paul, speaking to us in the second reading, said:
I became a minister in accordance with God’s
stewardship given to me to bring to completion for you the Word of God, the
mystery hidden from ages and from generations past.
Let
us now, therefore, listen carefully to him telling us something of the Word he
had been sent to preach to us and for us.
It is, he says:
The mystery hidden from ages and from generations past,
but now manifested to His holy ones, to whom God chose to make known the riches
of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: IT IS CHRIST IN YOU, the hope
for glory.
So,
the apostle was to proclaim the mystery of Christ dwelling in all who become
His faithful disciples in Mother Church: to make known the riches of this
mystery by enlightening our minds with the prospect of eternal glory promised
by Our Lord, and opening up our hearts for the influx of a joyous and inspiring
hope through the gift of His most Holy Spirit.
The
question now is, of course, what sort of welcome are you and I giving, even
here and now, to Paul’s proclamation and explanation of the mystery of Christ in
us and at work in us through His Spirit?
For
some misguided, half-hearted, Catholics Mass begins and ends with Holy
Communion. Now how can such people truly
welcome Christ in Holy Communion when they ignore Him in His Holy Word, having
no interest in the God-given power, privilege, and duty of Mother Church and
her priests to proclaim and explain the mystery of Christ in the Scriptures and
in us? How can they welcome into their
own lives Him Whom they can't be bothered to understand in His Body, the Church? Who can be filled with gratitude for riches
of which they choose to be ignorant?
Holy
Mass starts at the very beginning of our assembly when we first ask God to free
us from our sins. We do that so that we
may be able to celebrate the whole Eucharistic offering aright: first of all by
hearing God's word with our ears, as it is read, and then appreciating it with
our minds and embracing it in our hearts as it is proclaimed in the homily. After having thus welcomed Christ in His Word
we are thereby enabled and called to fittingly offer ourselves, in Him and with
Him, to the Father for His glory and the salvation of mankind, before finally receiving
Jesus and welcoming His Gift of the Holy Spirit into our very hearts and lives in
Holy Communion. That is the mystery
of the Catholic and Christian life: CHRIST IN US through the Eucharist
and Scriptures of Mother Church, and through our openness to the guidance of
His most Holy Spirit in our lives.
It
is particularly important for us today, however, to give attention to the
welcome we accord to the Word of God, to Jesus in the Scriptures proclaimed by
Mother Church. Commonly, these days,
people want short readings and almost demand short sermons; and it nearly
always raises an easy and rather cheap laugh if this attitude is made into a
sort of joke: "If you can't say what you want to say in five minutes, it's
not worth saying". This was not
the attitude of the early Church, as can be appreciated from the following
account to be found the Acts of the Apostles of a church meeting led by Paul at
Troas:
On the first day of the week when we gathered to break
bread, Paul spoke to them because he was going to leave on the next day, and he
prolonged his message until midnight. There
was a young man named Eutychus sitting on the window sill sinking into a deep
sleep as Paul continued talking, and overcome by sleep, he fell down from the
third story and was picked up dead. Paul
went down, threw himself upon him, and said as he embraced him, “Don‘t be
alarmed; there is life in him.” Then he
returned upstairs, broke the bread, and ate; after a long conversation that
lasted until daybreak, he departed. And
they took the boy away alive and were immeasurably comforted. (Acts 20:7-12)
Obviously,
what is prolonged for no good reason is not welcome. On the other hand, however, no one,
having some treasured possession, is ever content to look at it, rejoice in it,
mention and show it to friends, just once, and then take further delight in
it. Now the Scriptures are like a field
that contains countless hidden treasures.
If you are computer-wise you will be aware of some programmes where
certain words or links are signalled, which, if you press on them, up pops
further information, further enlightenment.
Holy Scripture is something like that.
A Scripture reading might seem, at first, to be just a long sequence of
not very interesting words, phrases and sentences, but, by the grace of God,
any one of those sentences or phrases, indeed almost any one of those words,
can be found to contain so much that is beautiful beyond measure. Now, the only way to discover such treasures
contained in the Scriptures is, by learning from the wisdom of Mother Church,
and entering into a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit of Jesus,
allowing the Him, Who first inspired those sacred words, to reveal something of
their meaning to you. If, however, you
do not prayerfully approach the Scriptures, you will hardly be able to patiently
hear them proclaimed, and most certainly you will not want to respectfully listen
to explanations of them. When that is
the case, then the Holy Spirit will in no way lead you to find the treasures
the Scriptures contain, for did not Jesus Himself once say to His Apostles (Matthew
7:6):
Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your
pearls before swine.
However,
those who do reverence the Scriptures, receive a blessing from the Lord Who spoke
through the prophet Isaiah saying:
On this one will I look: on him who is poor and of a
contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word. (Isaiah 66:2)
They
are the ones who, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, discover and delight in the
hidden treasures of the Scriptures; for them, the words of the Scriptures are
revealed as words of life, as Jesus Himself said:
It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but
by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.' (Matthew 4:4)
That
is the manna God offers us His People as He leads us through the desert of this
world to our home in heaven; it is the food we need for a journey which can be
long, the food meant to be our comfort and strength here on earth while it leads
us to eternal peace and joy in our heavenly home. May all of us gathered here today be enabled
to receive and experience it as such, through the loving kindness and mercy of
God our Father, Jesus our Saviour, and the Holy Spirit Who is God’s Gift to
each and every one of us in Mother Church.
