Choosing The Better Part And Learning From Jesus Series

16th Sunday in Course 2025

What is the critical verb in today’s Gospel account of Martha and Mary? What is it that Mary is doing that gives her a pass on serving the food and drink and cooking the chicken in the kitchen? Mary listened at the feet of Jesus. Martha did a lot of busy work, probably talking all the while, complaining about her sister and ordering the kitchen help around. Jesus and Mary understood that His ministry was limited, and if any of those around Jesus were to be able to continue His mission when He was gone, they’d need to learn as much as they could about that mission and ministry. So “Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her."

This priority is foreseen in the verse before the Gospel, “Blessed are they who have kept the word with a generous heart and yield a harvest through perseverance.” We’ll see Mary’s generosity just before Holy Week, when she anoints Jesus with a whole jar of precious nard, and in Jesus’s words, prepares Him for burial.

In our reading from Genesis today, we see a similar scene acted out in Abraham and Sarah’s life together. Visitors arrive (and we are tempted to see hints of the Trinitarian being of God). Abraham humbly gives them the hospitality we still expect to see in that part of the world. Sarah (as expected in a patriarchal clan) gets to do all the preparing of food, with her unacknowledged servants. Abraham serves the guests what looks to me like a first-class steak dinner. In the end, one of the three visitors tells Abraham that within a year, “I” will return and Sarah will be nursing her own baby boy. This, of course, was the dream of the couple for decades, and starts the process of forming the Hebrew nation we call the Jews, from whom comes the Savior of the whole human family, Jesus our Lord.

The psalm reminds us that Abraham was justified and blessed because of his faith and trust in God’s covenant promise to raise from his son a numberless people. This promise was made when Abraham showed his willingness to offer his only son to God, knowing, as the New Testament tells us, that God can raise whom He wishes from the dead.

Saint Paul shares with us an awesome prophetic insight, from his own experience of physical pain and missionary danger: “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church . . .” Our death-obsessed culture, which surrounds us and tempts us to think material things are all that exist, cannot understand that suffering has value. The pain and mental anguish of our Lord certainly did, and since we are members of His Mystical Body, ours does as well. Prayers help—a lot! And when you suffer, offer it to God with the Calvary pain and suffering of our Lord and Savior, His Blessed Mother Mary, and all the saints who eternally celebrate the triumph of Christ over all evil and pray constantly for our own perseverance and ultimate victory, as recorded in the Book of Revelation. As we pray and suffer, let’s all keep in mind our brothers and sisters in Kerr and surrounding counties, whose grief from the recent flood is unimaginable, and whose path forward is a challenge we can and should make easier with our donations and prayers.