BIG C CATHOLICS

Posts

Showing posts with the label Martha & Mary

Reflection on the 5th Sunday of Lent | The Raising of Lazarus, "Untie Him and Let Him Go." John 11:1-45

The Fifth Sunday of Lent (A) March 29, 2020 By Msgr. Bernard Bourgeois Ezekiel 37:12-14; Psalm 130; Romans 8:8-11; John 11:1-45 "Untie him and let him go." (John 11: 44) Nearing the end of the season of Lent, the Church this Sunday is knocking at the door of Holy Week (which begins next Sunday, April 9, with Palm Sunday), seeking entrance to the events that together form the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the annual reminder of God’s love for His people! During Holy Week, the faithful will visit the Upper Room during the Passover. At this meal, Jesus takes bread and wine and declares it to be His body and blood, which will be poured out for the many. Good Friday is the next stop on the journey. Kneeling at the foot of the cross, the people of God will adore that wood on which their Savior died. The story does not end there! At the Easter Vigil Mass, the people will stand in awe and wonder at the empty tomb. Jesus is risen! All

Fr. Charles Irvin Senior Priest Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for today’s readings ) Hospitality, presence, and being personally attentive. All of these are qualities of character that should be a part of our living in relationships with others. In today’s readings the theme that comes to my mind is that of hospitality, hospitality in the sense of personal presence, an openness of heart that allows guests into the inner home of our hearts and souls. In my years of pastoring souls I have come to recognize that the way we treat others is the way we treat God and the way we treat God is the way we treat others. The Gospel account of Martha and Mary along with the Old Testament account of Abraham meeting God in his three guests give us an occasion to examine the notion of personal presence to others, and our personal presence to God in Jesus Christ. Abraham, as you may remember, felt that God was absent from him. After Abraham’s initial experience with God we find him in tod

Fr. René J. Butler, M.S. Provincial Superior, La Salette Missionaries of North America Hartford, Connecticut ( Click here for today’s readings ) We are faced today with such an embarrassment of riches in the readings, one hardly knows where to begin. It would be interesting to ask each of you what struck you in particular. Let me share what struck me. I begin with... the Responsorial Psalm! “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.” The Psalmist certainly had his fair share of the experience of “the depths.” Many Psalms have a similar theme: “I cry aloud to God, cry aloud to God that he may hear me” (Ps. 77). Perhaps the bleakest of all ends with the words, “My only friend is darkness” (Ps. 88). Virtually everyone knows what it is like to be swallowed up by that ocean, drowning in what Shakespeare calls “a sea of troubles.” It can be the boundless depths of grief, the remorseless depths of misery, the hideous depths of rage, the black depths of fear, the pathless depths o

Dear Saint Lazarus, friend of Christ Incarnate and patron of the poor and the sick. I request your intercession, with the aid of the Holy Spirit; May the Lord, Who prefigured His Resurrection through your own miraculous rising, always guide me in my earthly pilgrimage and protect me in sickness and in health. Together with Saint Martha and Saint Mary, you welcomed the Savior into your home. May I do the same by welcoming Jesus into my heart and serving Him faithfully in my brothers and sisters. Help me to imitate Christ more perfectly. Holy St. Lazarus give me the strength to overcome all temptation and difficulty. May your witness inspire me to have faith and hope in Jesus, especially amid great trial. Pray that I will display heroic virtue and persevere in love so as to merit to be received by God into the halls of heaven. I ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who lives and reigns with the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever. Amen. Sain

The Fifth Sunday of Lent (A) April 2, 2017 By Msgr. Bernard Bourgeois Ezekiel 37:12-14; Psalm 130; Romans 8:8-11; John 11:1-45 "Untie him and let him go." (John 11: 44) Nearing the end of the season of Lent, the Church this Sunday is knocking at the door of Holy Week (which begins next Sunday, April 9, with Palm Sunday), seeking entrance to the events that together form the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the annual reminder of God’s love for His people! During Holy Week, the faithful will visit the Upper Room during the Passover. At this meal, Jesus takes bread and wine and declares it to be His body and blood, which will be poured out for the many. Good Friday is the next stop on the journey. Kneeling at the foot of the cross, the people of God will adore that wood on which their Savior died. The story does not end there! At the Easter Vigil Mass, the people will stand in awe and wonder at the empty tomb. Jesus is risen! Alle

July 29th the Church celebrates the memorial of Saint Martha of Bethany. Scripture records the special relationship Jesus had with Martha, her sister, Mary and her brother, Lazarus. Martha lived with her siblings in Bethany, a small village two miles outside of Jerusalem in the province of Judea. Our Lord visited them often. We read of three such visits in Luke 10:38-42, John 11:1-53, and John 12:1-9. The most famous of these is from the Gospel of Luke: "As they continued their journey he entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary [who] sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to 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.' The Lord said to her in reply, 'Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it w

Fr. René J. Butler, M.S. Provincial Superior, La Salette Missionaries of North America Hartford, Connecticut ( Click here for today’s readings ) In Jesus’ place, what would you have said to Martha? What would you have said to Mary? I know what I would have said: “People are like snowflakes, no two are alike.” It is one of my favorite sayings, which I often use in talks. Sometimes, when there are people in the audience who have never seen snow, I have to show pictures of snowflakes to help them see the point. Probably Martha and Mary had seen snow. It’s mentioned often enough in the Old Testament. They certainly knew it was white, and that the melting snows in the mountains were important for the spring harvests. But the idea of snowflakes not being alike? Well, it’s a nice psychological idea. But the Gospels aren’t about psychology. Still, the image helps us to see how Martha and Mary related differently to Jesus. So the psychological point has very important spiritual

Fr. René J. Butler, M.S. La Salette Missionaries of North America Hartford, Connecticut ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) In Jesus’ place, what would you have said to Martha? What would you have said to Mary? I know what I would have said: “People are like snowflakes, no two are alike.” It is one of my favorite sayings, which I often use in talks. Sometimes, when there are people in the audience who have never seen snow, I have to show pictures of snowflakes to help them see the point. Probably Martha and Mary had seen snow. It’s mentioned often enough in the Old Testament. They certainly knew it was white, and that the melting snows in the mountains were important for the spring harvests. But the idea of snowflakes not being alike? Well, it’s a nice psychological idea. But the Gospels aren’t about psychology. Still, the image helps us to see how Martha and Mary related differently to Jesus. So the psychological point has very important spiritual consequences. Have yo

Fr. Micheal J. Woolley In today’s Gospel we meet for the first time in the Scriptures a women whom Jesus becomes very good friends with, named Martha. And this very brief scripture passage paints us a very detailed picture of Martha: her personality, her virtues and her shortcomings. Martha comes across as an extrovert, a take charge type of person, a woman of action. We also see that Martha possesses at least two virtuous qualities: the virtue of faith in Jesus and the virtue of hospitality. These two virtues inspire Martha to welcome Jesus and probably the twelve apostles also to her home for dinner. But what of course jumps out most to us is Martha’s shortcomings. Jesus sums them all up when he says to her “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.” The Lord, who sees into the heart, looks into Martha’s heart and sees that it’s not just one thing Martha is anxious and worried about, she is rather anxious and worried about many things. Ye