Homily

"My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it." In St. Luke's Gospel, Jesus is not being rude or uncaring toward His mother and step-brothers, as some people might think. What He is doing is saying that there are even more important ties than family, and those are the ties between Him and His disciples, the people who are willing to embrace His Gospel. This doesn't leave Mary out of the picture in any way because as Luke shows us many times, there is no one who is a greater disciple than Mary.

You may remember the past where Jesus later visits the home of Lazarus and his two sisters. The one sister, Mary sits at the feet of Jesus and listens to His words. The other sister, Martha, is busy preparing food and drink for her guest, but she complains and asks Jesus to tell Mary to help her with the food, because their microwave was broken and it wasn't so easy to get a meal ready. Jesus tells Martha that she is anxious and upset about many things but only one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the better part and she will not be deprived of it. Now, many times this story is used to try and prove that the contemplative life is superior to the active life out in the world. (Sisters, please put your hands over your ears.) But this is not Luke's message here. What is the one thing necessary here? Pay attention to your guest!! That's the most important thing, not the food and drink, but the person for whom you are preparing the food and drink. Jesus does not criticize Martha for her material preparations of getting refreshments ready. He warns her that she is always tempted to get caught up with the work and the details and all the daily cares of life in this world, but forgetting what is most important, or rather WHO is most important, and WHO guides, directs and supports the good work of His disciples. His family is made up of those who hear the word of God and act on it.

So Mary will not be able to simply sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to Him 24/7. She will also have to act upon those words. Martha is not criticized because she is taking care of the food preparation, but because she is doing it without paying attention to hearing the word of God first. To hear the truth of Jesus, accept it and then act upon it this is what makes us a part of Jesus' family. This is what allows us to call His mother our mother as well, as we celebrate today the beginning of her life in the womb of her mother, St. Ann.

We are people who have and who do hear the word of God, as St. Luke tells us that Mary did. We know that we should also act on it, as Mary did. But how does that work?

When you get up every morning, what are most of the practical thoughts that enter your head? Probably a bunch of those thoughts are about what you need to do, and/or want to do during the day. If you are going to work or school, you give that some thought so you will prepare yourself, even in routine ways, to get there and probably on time. If you are hungry, you will think about what you need to do in order to eat. If specific tasks need to be done by you for yourself or for other people, you think about it before you do it. Some jobs may take a fair amount of thought, planning and preparation, and other jobs may not need much thought. If you are sending a rocket to Mars, that day it may require more thought than what pair of shoes you should wear, but even picking out a pair of shoes usually requires just a tad of a thought, a choice to be made.

So of all the choices and thoughts and planning that go into the beginning of our day, and even continue on for the rest of the day, what is the one plan or thought that is the most dangerous to omit? I suggest that it is the answer to the question, "How should I live as a Christian today?" We make preparations and choices and decisions about the other important aspects of our lives, about marriage, family, school, work, material goods, entertainment, exercise, eating, clothing, Facebook and on and on all the time. And yet shouldn't we have a thought, a plan, an idea about how we should follow Christ today? What temptations should I avoid? What virtues should I try to grow in? How will I treat family, co-workers, the anonymous public whether they share the road with me or not? I have heard the word of God. How will I act on it today? Because the danger is that I think I'm doing well with all the busy-ness of my business, without connecting it properly to my faith in Christ. Doing good deeds does not make me a Christian. Even atheists do good deeds, and some of them may be doing more good deeds than I do. Christians are the people who hear the word of God and then act on it. That is what makes us different than those who are not Christian. We hear the teaching of Christ as it comes to us in the Scriptures and in the teachings of the Church, His Church, and we are also prompted as individuals by Christ Himself, in our prayer, in our thoughts, in our consciences, to personally act on what He has told us.

I think it's very, very important that we should, every single day, deliberately think and plan how I will live as a disciple of Christ today. How will I act today on the word of God? Not like Martha who forgot why she was busy and Who she was busy for.

Think of this: If you pull the last pair of clean underwear out of the drawer and put them on, if you want clean underwear tomorrow you ask your wife or mom to wash some underwear for you. If you are a wife or a mom you ask yourself to wash some underwear for you. For those of us who live alone it doesn't matter because we all wear Depends. And they are disposable. If we can make a plan of action for clean underwear, shouldn't we be much more willing to make plans for action for the people and events of our day as followers of Christ? To spend some time in prayer to hear the Word of God, and to spend some time thinking about how we should be acting on it, because all the other elements of our day should be considered within that context of faith. May the Most Holy Mother of God help us live more faithfully by her prayers so that we too may call her our mother, for we hear the word of God and act on it.