Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XVI per Annum C
20 July 2025

 In the first reading, Abraham welcomed and quickly gave focused hospitality to the Lord God, desiring to have the Lord stay with him and providing a meal to the mysterious three figures.  In the Gospel account of Jesus’ visit to the home of Martha and her sister, Mary, welcome and hospitality are also a clear theme.  But I want to suggest that the Gospel goes further and provides an important lesson about what it means to truly welcome the Lord and to provide him hospitality.

In the Gospel selection we are told that Jesus entered a village where “Martha welcomed him”.  We quickly get the sense of all the many things Martha does to provide hospitality and to welcome the Lord.  The Gospel tells us that Martha is “burdened with much serving”.  The Lord’s response to Martha tells us still more: she is “anxious and worried about many things”.  I want to add here that offering hospitality and welcome is a real skill and a gift.  I am sure you can think of times when you have been welcomed into someone’s home.  Some people have the skill to make you feel very comfortable in their home.  It shows when a host plans and takes great care over so many things to make you feel welcome.  Generally speaking, as a culture we value hospitality and welcome.  But we need to go deeper than the cultural value of hospitality.  With the Gospel passage in mind, we need to consider what is involved with truly welcoming the Lord into one’s life.  Or maybe I should say, we need to consider what is involved with truly welcoming the Lord into one’s life in the way the Lord wants to be welcomed.

I make that distinction because while the Gospel tells us that Martha welcomed Jesus, her example is clearly not the one being promoted in the Gospel and not the one the Lord favors.  Rather, it is the example and the posture of Mary that is being promoted and favored.  I think this lesson is challenging for many of us, maybe even most of us.  It might cause some discomfort and ruffle a few feathers in our busy lives.  Honestly, we need to let the Gospel challenge us in this way.  So, what is it about Mary’s posture that is worth following and is favored by the Lord?  The Gospel tells us that Mary “sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak”.  What is noteworthy here is that description of sitting at the Lord’s feet.  That posture is the posture of a disciple.  In fact, it was a common turn of phrase in the ancient world to describe a student.  The student sits at the teacher’s feet.  So, Mary is presented here in the posture of a disciple who is listening to the master and learning from him.  Her posture calls to mind a lesson from the Old Testament, recorded in Deuteronomy (8:3) which says, “not by bread alone does man live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord.”  While we know from a few places in the Bible that both Martha and Mary are close friends of Jesus and are his followers, we learn an important lesson about a tendency that can get in the way of an authentic welcoming of the Lord in our own lives as disciples.  This gets at the heart of the question: Are we welcoming the Lord into our lives in the way he wants to be welcomed?

I want to be clear: in placing before us the image of Martha and the image of Mary, the Gospel is not indicating that Martha is somehow bad.  The Gospel is not telling us that hospitality and welcome should not be values.  But there is a risk to be like Martha in that we mean to welcome the Lord, we intend to follow him, we mean to be about his business… but if we don’t recognize and follow the primacy of sitting at his feet and listening to him, we aren’t providing the welcome space for him that we think we are providing.  In this context, the message is not that Martha is bad or that hospitality is bad.  The message is that the better part is the example of Mary who first listens to the Lord speak and learns from him, sitting at his feet.  In fact, to listen to the Lord and to be in his presence is the kind of attentive welcome that the Lord desires.

We live in a fast-paced world.  Quite regularly, I hear comments and hints from people that prayer life is not what it should be.  Personal prayer life may get little attention.  It may be practically non-existent.  We may be good about attending to prayer when it is something like the Holy Mass.  The obligatory character of it sort of motivates us.  But, what about personal prayer time daily?  What about the sacred time spent in our daily living whereby we speak to the Lord, but also leave room to listen to the Lord?  We can get wrapped up in so many things that we think are important.  We can get wrapped up even in religious things that are valuable.  But is that window dressing when we don’t make much time to be like Mary?  We might even adopt some of that attitude of Martha that is almost comical.  Not only are we busy and burdened and anxious about many things, but we even call out to the Lord, like Martha, and tell him he ought to tell the Marys around us that they should get up and get busy too!  Part of what this Gospel selection does for us is it rearranges our understanding of welcome and hospitality.  We likely think of welcome and hospitality as something we do, actions we take, something we give in order to provide for someone else.  But in our relationship with the Lord, we are challenged to accept that the way he wants to be welcomed is by our making time and space to adopt the posture of a disciple, to sit at his feet and to listen to him.  In that sense, our welcome is less about something we do or create, and more about our leaving space for him to occupy.  That is the better part for a disciple.

This means we need to examine our prayer life.  Attendance at Holy Mass every Sunday and holy day is a given.  Or, at least it should be.  But what about our personal commitment to welcoming the Lord by adopting the disciple’s posture of sitting with the Lord and listening to him?  For many of us, we might respond better to a committed time of prayer.  In that sense, participating with a time in our adoration chapel is a way in which you can welcome the Lord and find a real gift of calm and peace in an otherwise busy life.  You won’t regret seeking information in the bulletin or calling the office to become involved with adoration.  The prayerful reading and meditation on scripture is also a great act of hospitality to the Lord.  In that, we listen and reflect upon God’s Word and we let Him speak to us.  Other formulated prayers have a place too and they can help us, like Mary, choose the better part in the course of our day.  Life in the secular realm and even our religious deeds can be too hectic.  Often, we run the risk of convincing ourselves as disciples that we are doing the “work of the Lord” when we have not first spent time with the “Lord of the work”.  In the temptation to be busy about many things, which can become a replacement for the welcoming posture of a disciple exhibited by Mary, hear the Lord call to you, “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”.