Our Relationship to One Another

In today's Gospel, Mark 3: 31-35, Jesus' mother, brothers and sisters go to see Jesus. Jesus was surrounded by a crowd of people and they could not get to Him. So word was sent to Jesus about his family being outside of the house wanting to see Him. Jesus asks: "'Who are my mother and my brothers?' And looking around at those seated in the circle he said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.'"  Jesus, of course, is not snubbing His family. He is enlarging it to include all who do the will of His Father, which, of course, is modeled by his own biological family.

All of us have both a biological and a spiritual family. We are all one in Christ Jesus, who teaches us and empowers us to carry out the will of His Father. In doing so we are Jesus' brothers and sisters and mother and also brother and sister and mother to one another.  May we grow in this realization of who we are to one another and who the other is to us! As "mothers" to one another may we care for each other in love and compassion and offer the support each of us needs on this journey to eternity.

What St.Martha Teaches Us

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Martha. Her story of complaining to Jesus about Mary not helping her, as well as the story of her grief that her brother died and Jesus delayed in coming, are well known to us.   Martha is very real with Jesus. She holds nothing back, as she and Jesus are very close friends. Martha is a model for us to imitate in developing a close relationship with the Lord.  Like her, we too, at times, might become overwhelmed with meeting our responsibilities to others and, sometimes, resent all we have to do.  Resentment will pile up, as it did for Martha, when we compare ourselves to others and resort to complaining about them not doing their share of the work or, more accurately, not meeting our expectations!

It is the responsibility of each of us to balance our work and our prayer time--alone time with Jesus. No one else can do that for us.  When we begin to feel overwhelmed, we need to look at how well we are taking time to meet our personal needs, especially our need for solitude and reflection, spending time at the feet of the Lord, listening to Him and sharing our concerns with Him, being utterly honest with the Lord about what we are feeling and thinking, what's bothering us and weighing us down and for what we are grateful and leads us to praising God.  Meeting the needs of others must include meeting our own needs as well.  Doing both leads to healthy relationships with others, ourselves and our God.