July 29, 2026
Memorial of Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus
Lectionary: 403/607
Reading 1
Woe to me, mother, that you gave me birth!
a man of strife and contention to all the land!
I neither borrow nor lend,
yet all curse me.
When I found your words, I devoured them;
they became my joy and the happiness of my heart,
Because I bore your name,
O LORD, God of hosts.
I did not sit celebrating
in the circle of merrymakers;
Under the weight of your hand I sat alone
because you filled me with indignation.
Why is my pain continuous,
my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?
You have indeed become for me a treacherous brook,
whose waters do not abide!
Thus the LORD answered me:
If you repent, so that I restore you,
in my presence you shall stand;
If you bring forth the precious without the vile,
you shall be my mouthpiece.
Then it shall be they who turn to you,
and you shall not turn to them;
And I will make you toward this people
a solid wall of brass.
Though they fight against you,
they shall not prevail,
For I am with you,
to deliver and rescue you, says the LORD.
I will free you from the hand of the wicked,
and rescue you from the grasp of the violent.
Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 59:2-3,
4, 10-11, 17, 18
R. (17d) God is my refuge on the day of
distress.
Rescue me from my enemies, O my God;
from my adversaries defend me.
Rescue me from evildoers;
from bloodthirsty men save me.
R. God is my refuge on the day of distress.
For behold, they lie in wait for my life;
mighty men come together against me,
Not for any offense or sin of mine, O LORD.
R. God is my refuge on the day of distress.
O my strength! for you I watch;
for you, O God, are my stronghold,
As for my God, may his mercy go before me;
may he show me the fall of my foes.
R. God is my refuge on the day of distress.
But I will sing of your strength
and revel at dawn in your mercy;
You have been my stronghold,
my refuge in the day of distress.
R. God is my refuge on the day of distress.
O my strength! your praise will I sing;
for you, O God, are my stronghold,
my merciful God!
R. God is my refuge on the day of distress.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the light of the world, says the Lord;
whoever follows me will have the light of life.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary
to comfort them about their brother [Lazarus, who had died].
When Martha heard that Jesus was coming,
she went to meet him;
but Mary sat at home.
Martha said to Jesus,
“Lord, if you had been here,
my brother would not have died.
But even now I know that whatever you ask of God,
God will give you.”
Jesus said to her,
“Your brother will rise.”
Martha said to him,
“I know he will rise,
in the resurrection on the last day.”
Jesus told her,
“I am the resurrection and the life;
whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live,
and anyone who lives and believes in me will never die.
Do you believe this?”
She said to him, “Yes, Lord.
I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God,
the one who is coming into the world.”
or
Jesus 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 will not be taken from her.”
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072926.cfm
Commentary on Jeremiah
15:10,16-21
The call of Jeremiah is renewed. We have today the third of
Jeremiah’s so-called ‘confessions’, in which he bares his soul to God. It
includes two responses from the Lord, of which part of one is included in
today’s reading.
Jeremiah is experiencing a spiritual crisis half-way through
his ministry and is feeling very sorry for himself. Here, God, far from issuing
sympathetic noises, tells him to get his act together and to stop his orgy of
self-pity. He calls Jeremiah back to a new conversion and renews, in almost the
same words, the commands and promises of the prophet’s original call. (For a
helpful picture of Jeremiah and his difficulties, see the Introduction to the
Prophets in the New Jerusalem Bible.)
The tone is set by the opening words:
Woe is me…
The reason for Jeremiah’s moaning is that he has become, as
a prophet, a source of strife and dissension. He regrets that his mother gave
birth to him to have to face such problems in his prophetic calling. He sees
himself merely as a source of strife and division everywhere.
He says:
I have not lent, nor have I borrowed…
And yet he has all this trouble, everyone is against him. We
know how lending or borrowing money can be a serious source of friction and
even violence between lenders and borrowers.
The people causing him so much trouble are those he is
accusing of being unfaithful and disobedient to God, but they are being allowed
to get away with it. Where is God’s protection for his prophet? In case his God
is not aware of what he is going through and who is the real cause of his
troubles, he says:
…know that on your account I suffer insult. (Jer
15:15)
He says it does not make sense, because he has been so
faithful to God and his Law:
Your words were found, and I ate them,
and your words became to me a joy
and the delight of my heart…
He had made God’s word and God’s law his very own; he had
assimilated them into his very being. For he had been called in Yahweh’s name;
he belonged to Yahweh in a special way.
He never had anything to do with “merrymakers” (‘scoffers’
in some translations), the rich and the arrogant who felt they were above any
law, including God’s. They were those who mocked at and rejected the message he
brought. Under God’s constraint, he held himself aloof:
…under the weight of your hand I sat alone…
This means that he never married and he had few friends
because, “with [God’s] hand” on him, he felt that that was part of his calling.
Part of his loneliness was his distancing himself with indignation at the sins
of Judah. The prophet’s lot can be a lonely one.
Why, then, does he have to suffer such continuous pain from
a wound that will not heal?
…you are to me like a deceitful brook,
like waters that fail.
God has become for him a treacherous brook, whose waters are
inconstant. Jeremiah here, with a hint of sarcasm, accuses God of being
undependable, in contrast to the Lord’s own earlier description of himself as a
“fountain of living water”. Earlier (see Thursday of Week 16), Yahweh had said:
…my people…
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living water… (Jer 2:13)
Yahweh then replies to Jeremiah’s ‘confession.’ The Lord
commands Jeremiah to repent, then encourages him and renews his call. If
Jeremiah is willing to return then God will happily take him back into his
service. But there is a condition. He must speak ‘noble’, not despicable
thoughts like those he has just been uttering:
…you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless,
you shall serve as my mouth.
Only then can he truly act as the spokesperson of God. Those
negative thoughts will come back to him, but he must not go back to them.
If he follows the Lord’s command, then the Lord guarantees
that he will be strong enough to face any opposition from the people:
…a fortified wall of bronze…
But there is no promise that life will be any easier. On the
contrary:
…they will fight against you,
but they shall not prevail over you…
Why?
…for I am with you
to save you and deliver you…
And this is a solemn pledge “says the Lord.”
Persecution and rejection are almost inevitable for anyone
who takes a prophetic stance in the Church or outside it. The prophet, by his
or her calling, calls into question the conventional wisdom of a society or
church.
It is the role of the prophet, not so much to tell the
future, as to point out the direction in which the community should be
going—what it should be doing and what it should not be doing, and what the
consequences of its actions are likely to be.
Sometimes the prophet, in order to be heard, may speak in
very clear and blunt language. This is not likely to enhance his popularity
with those who become the object of his attacks or criticisms!
Jesus told us to love unconditionally and to forgive
forever, but he never, never said that we would be loved in return. On the
contrary, he said that among the ‘blessed’ would be included those who suffered
persecution for the sake of the gospel.
Jeremiah does not seem to have understood this fully. He
felt that because of his loyalty to God he should have been protected by God
and respected by the people. He told God this in no uncertain terms. In reply
he was told that, as a prophet, he would continue to be scorned and rejected,
but that he would be given the strength to carry on. We cannot expect anything
different.
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Saints
Martha, Mary and Lazarus – Gospel
(Note: The Gospel reading today is proper to the memorial
and must be used even if the ferial readings are otherwise chosen.)
Commentary on John
11:19-27 or Luke 10:38-42
There is a choice of Gospel readings for today’s Memorial,
each one featuring Martha and Mary and one focused around the death of Lazarus.
The first is from Luke’s Gospel and describes an occasion
when Jesus went to visit the family’s house in Bethany. It was not far from
Jerusalem and it seems that Jesus was a regular visitor there. On this occasion
we are told that Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to him.
Martha, on the other hand, was fussing about in the kitchen getting the meal
ready. After a while, Martha complained (perhaps there was there a slight hint
of jealousy and resentment here):
Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do
all the work by myself? Tell her, then, to help me.
Jesus replied:
Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many
things…Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.
Jesus had said elsewhere that his followers should not be
anxious or worried:
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what
you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is
not life more than food and the body more than clothing…seek first the kingdom
of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as
well. (Matt 6:25,33)
Jesuit Father Anthony de Mello used to say: “Why worry? If
you worry, you will die. If you don’t worry, you will die. So why worry?”
Martha gives the impression that Mary is just sitting there doing nothing. But
in fact, she is listening to Jesus—listening to the Word of God.
Many of us are very busy, run off our feet from dawn to
dusk. But what are we busy about? What was Martha busy about? We need to stop
and listen, as Mary did. ‘Busy-ness’ is not a virtue. The important thing is to
be active about the right things—and to know what is the right thing to do, we
have to stop and listen.
The alternative Gospel reading is from John. It is story of
raising of Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus was the brother of Mary and Martha.
Jesus had been told some days before that Lazarus was seriously ill, but did
not immediately respond. By the time Jesus reached Bethany, Lazarus had already
been dead for four days.
When the sisters heard that Jesus had arrived, Martha,
typically, rushed out to greet him while Mary stayed mourning in the house. As
soon as Martha saw Jesus, she told him that if Jesus had been there earlier,
Lazarus would not have died. But she was confident that any prayer Jesus would
make to his Father would be answered.
Jesus said to her:
Your brother will rise again.
Replied Martha, expressing her faith in a future life:
I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the
last day.
In so speaking, she draws from Jesus one of the great
sayings of John’s Gospel:
I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in
me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me
will never die. Do you believe this?
In other words, those who believe in Jesus as Lord and
follow his Way immediately enter a life that will never end, although the body,
of course, will pass away.
This, in turn, draws a great profession of faith from
Martha:
Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of
God, the one coming into the world.
It is a statement on a par with that of Peter at Caesarea
Philippi earlier on.
And that, of course, is what this whole chapter is about.
Jesus, the Son of God, as the Source of Life. It is also a preparation for
Jesus’ own death from which he will rise in glory and be reunited with his
Father. The same future is promised to us.
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Wednesday, July 29,
2026
Ordinary Time
Opening Prayer
God our Father and protector, without you
nothing is holy, nothing has value. Guide us to everlasting life by helping us
to use wisely the blessings you have given to the world.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives
and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Gospel Reading - Luke 10: 38-42
In the course of their journey Jesus came to
a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. She had a
sister called Mary, who sat down at the Lord's feet and listened to him
speaking. Now Martha, who was distracted with all the serving, came to him and
said, 'Lord, do you not care that my sister is leaving me to do the serving all
by myself? Please tell her to help me.'
But the Lord answered, 'Martha, Martha,' he said, 'you worry
and fret about so many things, and yet few are needed, indeed only one. It is
Mary who has chosen the better part, and it is not to be taken from her.'
Reflection
•
The dynamics of the account. The condition of
Jesus as an itinerant Teacher offers Martha the possibility to receive him in
her house. This account presents the attitude of both sisters: Mary sitting
down at Jesus’ feet is all taken up listening to his Word; Martha, instead, is
taken up completely by many services and she gets close to Jesus to protest
about her sister’s behavior. The dialogue between Jesus and Martha occupies a
long space in the account (vv.40b-42): Martha begins with a rhetorical
question, “Lord, do you not care that my sister is leaving me to do the serving
all by myself?”; then she asks for the intervention of Jesus so that he can
call the sister back to the domestic work which she has abandoned: «Tell her to
help me.” Jesus answers in an affectionate tone; this is the sense of the
repetition of the name, “Martha, Martha”: he reminds her that she is concerned
about “many things,” and in reality, she needs “only one” and he concludes
recalling that the sister has chosen the best part and will not be taken away
from her. Luke has built up this account on a contrast: the two different
personalities of Martha and Mary; the first one is all taken up by “many
things”, the second one does not do even one, she is all taken up with
listening to the Master. The purpose of this contrast is to underline the attitude
of Mary who dedicates herself to listen fully and totally to the Master, thus
becoming the model of every believer.
•
The person of Martha. She is the one who takes
the initiative to receive Jesus in her house. In dedicating herself to receive
the Master she is full of anxiety for the multiplicity of things to be prepared
and by the tension of seeing herself alone to do it all. She is taken up by so
much work, she is anxious and experiences a great tension. Therefore, Martha
“goes to Jesus” and addresses him a legitimate question for help: why should
she be left alone by the sister. Jesus answers seeing that she is only worried,
she is divided in the heart between the desire of serving Jesus with a meal
worthy of his person and the desire to dedicate herself to listen to him.
Jesus, therefore, does not disapprove the service of Martha, but only the
anxiety with which she does it. But before, Jesus had explained in the parable
of the sower that the seed that fell among the thorns recalls the situation of those
who listen to the Word but allow themselves to be taken up by other concerns
(Lk 8: 14). Therefore, Jesus does not disapprove the work of Martha, the value
of acceptance and welcoming concerning his person, but he warns the woman about
the risks in which she may fall: the anxiety and agitation. Jesus had already
said something about these risks: “Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven, and
everything else will be given to you as well” (Lk 12: 31)
•
The person of Mary. She is the one who accepts
the Word: she is described with the imperfect form: “she listened”, a
continuing action in listening to the Word of Jesus. Mary’s attitude is in
contrast with that full of anxiety and tension of her sister. Jesus says that
Mary has preferred “the best part” that corresponds to the listening of his
Word. From the Word of Jesus the reader learns that there are not two parts of
which one is qualitatively better than the other, but there is only the good
one: to accept His Word. This attitude does not mean the evasion from one’s own
tasks or daily responsibilities, but only the knowledge that listening to the
Word precedes every service, every activity.
•
Balance between action and contemplation. Luke
is particularly attentive to link listening to the Word, to relationship with
the Lord. It is not a question of dividing the day in times dedicated to prayer
and others to service, but attention to the Word precedes and accompanies the
service. The desire to listen to God cannot be substituted by other activity:
it is necessary to dedicate a certain time and place to seek the Lord. The
commitment to cultivate listening to the Word comes from the attention to God:
everything can contribute: the environment of the place, the time. However, the
desire to encounter God should come from within one’s own heart. There is no
technical element which automatically leads one to encounter God. It is a
problem of love: it is necessary to listen to Jesus, to be with Him, and then
the gift is communicated, and falling in love begins. The balance between
listening and service involves all believers; in family life as well as in
professional and social life: What can we do so that baptized persons persevere
and attain the maturity of faith? We should educate ourselves to listen to the
Word of God. This is the most difficult but surest way to attain maturity of
faith.
Personal Questions
•
Do I know how to create in my life situations
and itineraries of listening? Do I limit myself only to listen to the Word of
God in Church, or rather, do I dedicate myself to personal and profound
listening looking for suitable times and places?
•
Do you limit yourself to a private use of the
Word or do you proclaim it in order to become light for others and not only a
lamp which lights one’s own private life?
Concluding Prayer
Yahweh, who can find a home in
your tent, who can dwell on your holy mountain?
Whoever lives blamelessly, who acts uprightly, who speaks the
truth from the heart. (Ps 15: 1-2)
Saints Martha, Mary
and Lazarus
Martha and Mary were sisters who lived with their brother
Lazarus in Bethany, a town not far from Jerusalem. Jesus seems to have been a
regular visitor and, on one occasion, he gently reproved Martha for her
complaint that her sister Mary was not helping her in the preparation of the
meal. The words of Jesus in this passage are proffered by some as indicating
the excellence of the contemplative life (represented by Mary) over the cares
of the active life (represented by Martha), although there is not universal
agreement on this interpretation.
In the Gospel of John, Martha also appears on the occasion
of the miracle of Lazarus’ return to life, when the expression of her faith in
Jesus and his divine power was the occasion for his great statement:
I am the resurrection and the life.
John also records that Jesus was again in their house six
days before his last Passover and that Martha was serving the meal. Basically,
these three events are all that we really know about Martha.
But as in the case of many Gospel personalities, legends
grew up around Martha and her family. Mary, too, in some of these legends was
identified with Mary Magdalene, an interpretation not normally supported by
modern commentators. There was a medieval legend that Martha, Mary Magdalene
and Lazarus were responsible for the evangelisation of the district of Provence
in France. Martha’s remains were said to have been discovered and put in a
shrine at Tarascon in 1187.
Pictures of Martha reflect both the Gospel stories and the
legends. She is invoked as the patron of housewives and lay sisters in
religious congregations. She is shown with a ladle, a broom, or a bunch of
keys.
Martha is also represented with a dragon, which she was
supposed to have tamed at Tarascon by sprinkling it with holy water. She then
wrapped her sash around its neck before bringing it to Arles where it was
killed. She is also represented in scenes of the raising of Lazarus, for
example, in the Romanesque sculpture at Chichester Cathedral in England.
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