HOSPITALITY

October 5, Tuesday

TWENTY-SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

 

In Jonah’s experience, God’s word is very powerful if we bring it to people in the name of God and if they are open to it.

      A hospitable family or person makes guests feel at home and gives them the best available. But if we are truly hospitable we are also listening to the guest and to receive from him or her perhaps more than we give and in a deeper way. We receive the guest as a person. God presents himself in the Bible as a traveler on a journey. He asks for hospitality as a stranger or a poor person. Christ also says that in the homeless we welcome him.

 

First Reading: Jonah 3:1-10

Next, God spoke to Jonah a second time: “Up on your feet and on your way to the big city of Nineveh! Preach to them. They’re in a bad way and I can’t ignore it any longer.”

This time Jonah started off straight for Nineveh, obeying God’s orders to the letter.

Nineveh was a big city, very big—it took three days to walk across it.

Jonah entered the city, went one day’s walk and preached, “In forty days Nineveh will be smashed.”

The people of Nineveh listened, and trusted God. They proclaimed a citywide fast and dressed in burlap to show their repentance. Everyone did it—rich and poor, famous and obscure, leaders and followers.

When the message reached the king of Nineveh, he got up off his throne, threw down his royal robes, dressed in burlap, and sat down in the dirt. Then he issued a public proclamation throughout Nineveh, authorized by him and his leaders: “Not one drop of water, not one bite of food for man, woman, or animal, including your herds and flocks! Dress them all, both people and animals, in burlap, and send up a cry for help to God. Everyone must turn around, turn back from an evil life and the violent ways that stain their hands. Who knows? Maybe God will turn around and change his mind about us, quit being angry with us and let us live!”

God saw what they had done, that they had turned away from their evil lives. He did change his mind about them. What he said he would do to them he didn’t do.

 

Gospel: Luke 10:38-42

As they continued their travel, Jesus entered a village. A woman by the name of Martha welcomed him and made him feel quite at home. She had a sister, Mary, who sat before the Master, hanging on every word he said. But Martha was pulled away by all she had to do in the kitchen. Later, she stepped in, interrupting them. “Master, don’t you care that my sister has abandoned the kitchen to me? Tell her to lend me a hand.”

The Master said, “Martha, dear Martha, you’re fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing. One thing only is essential, and Mary has chosen it—it’s the main course, and won’t be taken from her.”

 

Prayer

Our loving God and Father,
you have invited us to stay with you,
to listen to the message of Jesus your Son
and to accept from him your peace and love.
May we welcome him wholeheartedly
and learn from him to welcome him too
in people who appeal to us
for forgiveness and a bit of warmth,
for patience and hope and joy.
Let them not pass your servants by.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

Reflection:

Listen !

In our parishes, we find many of our friends who come to Mass on Sundays, but are always busy. They have no time for their family, no time to play with their children. It happens to priests and religious too. We are too busy with many of our projects and in the end we become worshippers of this religion of our busy-ness:

In Jesus’s conversation with Martha, he teaches her and in turn all his disciples, and important lesson: “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing” (v. 41).

What is this one thing that we need? The style of these two sisters – Martha and Mary – receiving Jesus in their home describes two important aspects of our own relationship with Jesus: Listening to the word of the Lord, contemplation, and practical service to our neighbour.
In bustling about and busying herself, Martha risks forgetting the most important thing – the presence of the guest – Jesus. A guest is not merely to be served, fed, looked after in every way. Most importantly he ought to be listened to. If you have no time to listen to a guest who visits your home, it would be better for you to arrange a good hotel for his/her stay. A guest comes to your home to meet you. Same is the case with the Lord: when he comes home, remember this word: Listen!
Jesus’ response to Martha that there is only one thing that needs to be done — finds its full significance in listening to the very word of Jesus, that word which illuminates and supports all that we are and what we do. Not much is necessary to welcome Jesus; indeed, only one thing is needed: listen to him —let him realize he is among family and not in a temporary shelter.

Martha considered what she was doing, was the most essential thing to do; she was too absorbed and worried by the things “to do”. But For a Christian, works of service and charity are to be rooted in listening to God’s Word. We need to be — like Mary — at the feet of Jesus, with the attitude of a disciple.

Explaining this passage to a gathering of families, Pope Francis raised these questions, which we must ask ourselves today. “Do you, husband, take time to listen to your wife? And do you, woman, take time to listen to your husband? Do you, parents, take time, time to “waste”, to listen to your children? or your grandparents, the elderly? — “But grandparents always say the same things, they are boring…” — But they need to be listened to! Listen. I ask that you learn to listen and to devote more of your time. The root of peace lies in the capacity to listen.

 

Video available on Youtube: Listen!