The Catholic Calendar for Saturday, July 29, 2006
Saturday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
St. Martha

Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Jeremiah 7:1-11
Psalm 84:3, 4, 5-6a and 8a, 11
John 11:19-27

A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:

"I know whatever you ask of God,
God will give you . . . ."

Absolute certainty.

Martha may not have had time to sit at His feet as her sister Mary did, but she sure seems to have come away with some important lessons.

What you ask of God will be given to you. This is one of the reasons we are told to pray "in the name of Jesus." To pray in His name is more than simply to pray and say His name at the end. Rather it is to pray AS Jesus himself–a privilege granted to God's children by adoption. Whatever we ask of God, knowing His intent and will and bending before it, we will receive. But praying in the name of Jesus always means praying first and foremost Jesus' most difficult prayer–"Thy will, not mine."

Today we celebrate this woman, who while rushing through the world learned to take time enough to love the Lord and learn who He was and what He could do. We are all Marthas to some extent–but that's okay, for as we see in this often-neglected part of Martha's story, we can come to know God intimately as well as she did.

- JuandelaCruz
(sriddle415 at yahoo dot com)