Today, we meet Martha and Mary at their home with Jesus as their guest. The two present to us two different ways of living our lives here on earth. We know that our stay here on earth is a preparation to be with God for eternity. Martha felt harassed and anxious about her working compounded by being alone without Mary not realizing she could be helping her. She asked Jesus for help. But the Lord helped her realize that Mary was fine listening to Him. He pointed out that Mary was agitated because she was missing something essential which was what Mary was doing, namely, her awareness of being with Jesus and listening to Him. That was the only thing necessary, that she in her concern shown in preparing to be hospitable with the Lord, she was not praying like her sister was.

Today's gospel reveals the difference in the words we utter in response to different circumstances that happen to us. With bad things, we can curse. With good things, we react differently. The last line of the text tells us about reacting with hope. Listen to the homily to check this out!

Today, Jesus clarifies who is the Lord! This term was employed by the reverent Jews with respect to God's name. They preferred not to pronounce His Name and use another term. They applied the word the Romans used to refer to their Emperor. Thus, what the Jews did was actually subversive in the Roman Empire because Yahweh was the Lord. Anyhow, on the occasion of the controversy the Jews began about their criticism of Jesus' disciples who picked on grain to eat it to satisfy their hunger. After alluding to a couple of justifications for that behavior that were about the commandment of the Sabbath being trumped by other commandments, Jesus concluded with the final justification, namely, Jesus is Lord even of the Sabbath.

Jesus invites us in today's gospel to rest, and to rest in Him. He described how this looks like. We should imitate Him, in being meek and humble of heart.

Today's gospel message is too significant to overlook or to miss. It is so because we all want to become friends of Jesus Christ. For that to happen, we need what our Lord reveals today. We need to be childlike. Listen to the homily.

Today's gospel reveals to us a certain frustration of Jesus. Capharnaum became His second residence, after Nazareth. He adopted the city as His HQ for His public phase of His stay on Earth. He performed many miracles there, but still its population resisted Jesus and His message. So, our Lord makes it plain that they would suffer more than what Sodom and Gomorrah underwent when God sent fire and brimstone from Heaven to destroy them. This episode should spur us to wake up our sense of responsibility to respond generously to Our Lord's invitation to conversion and more self-giving.

Jesus explains clearly today what He wants from His followers. He does not mince words. He does not hide behind euphemisms. Nobody will be able to say that any of His demands or requirements were not clearly made plain. He employs strong words. His standards are clear. He demands that He is above every consideration: above family, above parents or any creature we may take fancy with.

The gospel today addresses these two very important questions, namely, eternal life and the identity of our neighbor. Let us be open to the words of Jesus so we could adopt whatever measure or make necessary adjustments in our lives to incorporate Jesus' commands in our circumstances.

Be not afraid! We address those bad fears in today's gospel!

The Lords sees us all as sheep without a shepherd. We tend to be defenseless when facing the enemies of our soul, especially the devil and his two allies, namely, worldliness and our fallen nature. Hence, He reveals to us today that He is the shepherd of us sheep. We might fall prey to deceptions and lies the devil expertly spreads around disguised as ideologies, wokeness, materialism and consumerism, etc. Shall we permit Him to shepherd us by faithful to listening to Him in prayer, in getting regular instruction in our faith and morals, in going to frequent confession and spiritual direction and the like.