For many years, we celebrated the feast of St Martha on July 29 of each year. However, back in 2022, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments announced that they were adding the names of Martha’s brother Lazarus and her sister May to this feast day as well. We hear the Gospels how at different times this family opened their hearts and their homes to Jesus. We hear in the Gospel today how the sisters come to Jesus at the death of their brother. Even though this family was friends with Jesus, we hear how they came to terms with Jesus being their Lord and their savior. Jesus was dear friends with these three siblings. He showed great human emotion at the death of his friend Lazarus. All of us human beings have our strengths and weaknesses, shown by the strengths and weaknesses of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus in the Gospels. We meet God in the midst of our reality, in the midst of those strengths and weaknesses.
We can see in that Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, although they were members of the same family, they had very different personalities. Martha was more of a person of hard work and action, Mary was more drawn to prayer and contemplation. The Church needs all of those different personalities and from the different walks of life. Think of how we have priests who are theologians, theologians, canon lawyers, school administrators, and missionaries. Priests in the small towns in the Delta and as rectors of cathedrals. The Church always has had people of action and people of prayer, people of the establishment and prophetic voices of the poor. As we celebrate Mary, Martha, and Lazarus today, let us learn from their experiences, and may we look for balance in our lives of faith. May we all be beloved friends of Jesus just as these three siblings were.
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