Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church



Homily for July 18, 2004
Year C - Cycle II
16th Sunday in Ordinary Time 

by Dcn. Ray Alcouffe
Topic: Welcoming God and One Another
+  +  +


Gospel:
Luke 10:38
" . . . Jesus entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed Him."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How do we welcome God?  How is God made welcome at the center of our being, in our hearts and in our community?  This question is the focus of our first reading and the Gospel passage for today.  In the first reading, Abraham and Sarah are confronted with three visitors one of whom manifests the immediate presence of God and Abraham rushes out to make them welcome with a great display of hospitality.  Now Abraham and Sarah are old and seemingly at the end of their lives, yet God raises up from them new life which is the beginning of the first great covenant between God and God's people who issued from this couple.
In the Gospel reading we are presented with an entirely different scene of welcome, which is the beginning of the new and final covenant between God and the people of God. Luke relates this interaction between Martha and Mary in a way that we can very easily understand because it is so typical of real people.  Mary and Martha are young women and they with their brother Lazarus have a special friendship with Jesus.  Because they are unmarried we can assume they are in their teens.  Their personalities are such that Martha is the outgoing one and Mary is more passive and introspective. Thus, Martha is the one who goes out to Jesus to welcome him and his entourage and sets about the preparation of having them as guests in her house.  Looks like she assumed that she would get help in this from her sister but when she saw Mary just sitting there at the feet of Jesus, her frustration just blew.  We can feel this frustration when Martha addresses Jesus with "Don't you care?"  Those of us who have lived with teen aged daughters recognize this situation very well--it hasn't changed in 2000 years--and her saying in effect - "Make her Help me!" just completes the picture.  Now if Martha and Mary's father or mother were in the picture, it would have turned out differently because they would have made Mary get up and help (and would have been helping themselves, like Abraham and Sarah).  So they obviously weren't there and Jesus was the only one Martha could appeal to attesting to the special standing he had with the family.  But from Martha's point of view, Jesus is of no help - he seems to ignore the effort that Martha is making in welcoming him and instead favors the effort Mary is making by being attentive to his words, which implies a higher form of welcome.


This is a common dilemma when hosting guests to make them feel welcome.  Let's turn it around. Have you ever been a guest at someone's home where the host or hostess is so busy doing things that you barely see them, much less have time to share with them in any kind of conversations?  All the efforts of the host are really appreciated but is that the most important thing?  Jesus in this situation seems to be saying that it is most important to be present rather than filling the time you have with God with activities.


With this in mind, I asked my wife, Joan, what would you do if you knew Jesus was going to come to our house for a visit?  She immediately said, "I'd first get this house shaped up, I'd get rid of all this clutter; but then I'm afraid I wouldn't have the time to really give him the welcome he deserves."  We have this sense that welcoming is really the two things together - the activity of preparation and the taking the time to be present to the one you are welcoming.  In Jesus' time, especially for women, the preparation was assumed to take precedence; the men could be present.  Jesus on the contrary is saying that it is not either/or - either the activity of preparation or the taking of time to be present - it is both/and.  This is so like God in his revelation of himself to us. God is not either transcendent or eminent. In God's presence to us, God is both.  Jesus is not either human or divine. Jesus is both.  So it is with welcoming God.  Now spiritually one of our deepest longings is to welcome Jesus at the center of our being - in our heart.  One of the most effective ways of doing this is, I think, expressed in the simple path of Mother Teresa.


The fruit of silence is prayer.
The fruit of prayer is faith;
the fruit of faith is love.
The fruit of love is service.
The fruit of service is peace.

In the context of welcome, silence and prayer are the ways of getting rid of the clutter in our lives in order to set out the best of what we have and thus be prepared to welcome God into our hearts.  Faith calls us to reorient our lives to trust that we are loved.  Fr. Henri Nouwen says, "The descending way of Jesus, painful as it is, is God's most radical attempt to convince us that everything we long for is indeed given to us."  So, when Jesus says to have faith in Him, he is saying to "Trust unreservedly that you are loved so that you can abandon every false way of obtaining love."  With this faith then we in turn are able to love effectively.  Love is prayer in action and it is with love that we welcome others into our lives.  This is the love that Martha shows Jesus; this is the love that we show others as we welcome them.  And it is this love Mother Teresa says has its fruit service to others - which is love in action.  Thus, the fruit of this process, this simple path, is peace - a peace that allows us to enjoy the presence of Jesus in our lives.


Furthermore, service to others and welcoming them into our lives is sacramental--a concrete action on our part which is the effective sign of the spiritual action of welcoming God.  Jesus himself tells us this - "I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me . . . whatever you do for these least brothers of mine, you do for me."

As it is for the individual, so it is with the community.  A welcoming community, one that is of service to and welcomes others is a powerful sign of the presence of God in that community.  Very early in our history it was said of us--"look at those Christians - see how they love one another."  We have said that love leads to welcoming others into our lives.  It is evident that we are a community when we love and evident that we are not when we fail to love.  Over the years, it has been said of us, the community of Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish, that we aren't very welcoming.  Oh yes, we do have sub-communities in whose love is evident and we can feel the warmth of welcome; but for the parish as a whole, it's evidently not so.  We have tried to address this from time to time by forming welcoming committees to facilitate community welcome but this doesn't work over the long term.  It just can't be the exclusive work of a committee or the clergy; it must be the work of all of us.


After reflecting upon the readings for today, I think that each of us here is being called to re-orient ourselves, in faith, to actively welcome one another as a fruit of our faith. This would complete the sacrament of God's presence among us.  Each of us will have a different approach to doing this according to our personalities.  I'll venture a simple suggestion as a start.  After each Mass, approach someone here who you don't know and introduce yourself to them with the aim of getting to know them. In this spirit, no one should be a stranger here for long; and as we come to know one another, we will be able to be of service to one another.


We are here, basically because we love God and want to welcome God, who we do not see, into the center of our being.  The sign that we are really doing that is the welcome we give one another that we do see. That is the important lesson from our readings for today.


God Bless you all.