7/29/2015 – St Martha – John 11:19-27

7/29/2015 – St Martha – John 11:19-27

     Last week we celebrated the feast day of St Mary Magdalene and today we celebrate another well know woman from the New Testament, another woman who was Jesus' good friend and disciple - St Martha.   We all know the story about Mary and Martha from the Gospel of Luke, about how Martha was the one busy cooking and serving and taking care of her guests, but how Mary was wanting to listen to Jesus and to learn from him rather than bother herself with housework.  That reading is one of the options for today’s memorial for St Martha. I prefer to use today’s reading from John's Gospel that we hear today.  Indeed, the fact that the Church has a memorial feast in honor of Martha in our liturgical calendar says a lot about what a great witness she is to the Good News of the Gospel.  Martha’s belief in Jesus was a shining light for her in a time of great darkness in her life.  Martha is able to testify: “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.” Martha is able to proclaim that he is the light and the resurrection.  Like most of us, Martha is a complex and complicated human being with her strengths and her weaknesses.  As we are trying to implement greeters at our masses, I very much appreciate Martha’s gift of generosity and hospitality, of taking care of others and getting the work done.  We give thanks for Martha, for her great example of faith in the Gospel, for her role as a disciple of Christ in the Early Church.  And we give thanks for all those who work so hard to serve our parish and to serve our parishioners day in and day out, for their example of faith and tenacity.