Daily homily for Thursday of the 17th Week in Ordinary Time Cycle I
Theme: JESUS IN THE HOME OF MARY AND MARTHA……”You are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing”
By: Fr. Antoni CAROL i Hostench
(Sant Cugat del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain)
Homily for Thursday July 29 2021
Today, we must also listen to our Lord —even if we are busy by so many things— reminding us that “there is need of only one thing” (Lk 10:42): love and saintliness. They should be our aim, the horizon we must never lose sight of amidst our daily chores.
Because we shall be “busy” if we follow our Creator’s plan: “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1:28). The earth! The world! This is our meeting point with the Lord. “I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one” (Jn 17:15). Yes, the world is an “altar” for us and for our offerings to God and to others.
We belong in this world, but that does not mean we have to be worldly. On the contrary, we are called to become —in a beautiful expression of Saint John Paul II— “Priests of Creation!” “priests” of our world, of a world we passionately love.
Here is the question: world and saintliness; our daily chores and the one and only thing we truly need. They are not opposed realities, and we have to try to make both coincide. And this coincidence must be carried out in our own heart, where heaven and earth can be reunited. Because within the human heart is where the dialogue between Creator and creature takes place.
Therefore, prayer is necessary. “Ours is a time of continual movement which often leads to restlessness, with the risk of “doing for the sake of doing”. We must resist this temptation by trying “to be” before trying “to do”. In this regard we should recall how Jesus reproved Martha: “You are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing” (Lk 10:41-42).” (Saint John Paul II).
There is no opposition between “to be” and “to do”, but there is indeed a priority order of precedence: “Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her” (Lk 10:42).
Fr. Antoni CAROL i Hostench
(Sant Cugat del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain)