THE WORD AND THE FEAST
1 John 4; 7-16: 1-9; John 11: 19-27.
What has traditionally been celebrated as the feast of St. Martha, from 2021, we have been celebrating as the feast of the Siblings of Bethany - Martha, Mary and Lazarus - thanks to our beloved late Holy Father Pope Francis. Just as we recently celebrated the Grandparents' day... this could be also considered as the Siblings day...reminding us, how we need to as siblings love each other, sustain each other and be connected to the Lord together in love.
In the Gospel, we see when Martha tells Jesus, "if you were here, my brother would not have died," Martha's (and Mary's) hope in the Lord was plainly expressed in those words. But the Lord challenges them to journey further in their hope, not to get stuck to clichés, not to remain with mere oft-repeated statements and memorised aphorisms... but to go all the way out, in trusting the Lord. It is like what St. Paul who says about Abraham (Rom 4:18), that Jesus invites Martha and Mary: to hope against hope!
Martha's confession about Christ is in no way less than the confession of St. Peter! The faith that Martha had in Jesus was so profound that she believed when Jesus was around nothing could go wrong. Jesus acknowledges the trust that Martha had in him, but invites her to go a step ahead and trust that even if things went wrong, she had nothing to fear for the Lord was with her always!
Martha, Mary and Lazarus are given to us, in contrast to the people whom the prophets before Jesus and Jesus himself had to encounter... people who heard everything said and saw everything done, but at the first instance of a crisis or doubt, they fell back to their faithless ways. To stay strong without falling, we need to sustain each other - Martha and Mary, Disciples gathered together in the upper room, etc... are models we have of those who sustained themselves in each other's love, during moments of struggle.
As we hear from the first reading, love is proposed as an over-all remedy and today, in a special way, the love between the siblings! Even if we are not siblings, our love in the One Lord, makes us siblings. Let us love one another!