Martha, Martha

Memorial of Saint Martha
Readings for Saturday
Biographical Information about Saint Martha

Reflection:

Some days it’s good to be able to look at multiple passages from the Gospel on the same topic. Today we are given a choice of encounters with St. Martha. The first option is to look at her example of faith as she encounters the Lord after the death of her brother, Lazarus. In this meeting we see a Martha’s deep and abiding faith as she says: “But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.”

This statement is quite remarkable for a couple of reasons. First, if we look a little way back in this same story from the Gospel of St. John, we see that Jesus could have come sooner. He could very possibly have arrived in time to heal Lazarus instead of putting the dead man’s sisters and friends through the emotional ordeal of having to deal with his loss. Martha knew this. As we see from other references to Martha (such as the reading we have from Luke), Martha was rather outspoken with Jesus. Based upon that understanding of Martha we find it remarkable that she was composed in her faith to make not only this first profession, but to go much further and say; “I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world”

I will say we can reconcile her character with the Luke Gospel as we see her going out to meet Jesus at the beginning of the reading. Since in Luke she was not afraid to push Jesus (“Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.”) We can easily picture her state of mind and demeanor when she greets the Lord with; “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” We can almost picture her, standing in the middle of the road, hands on hips, a look of grief mixed with anger, almost defying the Lord to walk around her. It must have struck the Lord, at that moment, how much the impending necessity of the sign of faith her brother was to become was costing her.

It was not her feisty attitude with Jesus or her take charge character that provides us the saintly example we see in her. It was her absolute faith in the Lord as Messiah and Savior that we see. In the Lazarus story we see it clearly set against the backdrop of personal tragedy, making it much more important. Remember, Martha uttered those words before Jesus raised her brother back to life.

Her example of faith and service is one we, as modern day disciples of Jesus, need to copy to the best of our ability. Martha served the Lord. Yes, she complained that her sister Mary was not helping. But that only exemplifies the fact that each of us has gifts and those gifts, while different, each have a place in God’s Kingdom. Let us pray today that we can serve the Lord using our own gifts as well as St. Martha did and earn for ourselves the same reward of eternal life in Christ.

Pax