Sixteenth Sunday

The readings today provide us with vast issues of interest. But in a special way they point out for us two attitudes that underline a balanced Christian spirituality. The first reading from the book of Genesis calls our attention to the virtue of hospitality. As an historical narrative, it shows the humaneness of Abraham which is manifest in his great sense of hospitality and generosity. Perhaps, without knowing who actually his visitors were, he received them as guests deserving of loving care and indeed went all out to provide for their basic needs: food and shelter – the basic human necessities. Having provided for the strangers’ needs, they, in turn, ‘provided’ for the need of Abraham by assuring him of the birth of a son that he so much wanted but didn’t have. Are these guests divine beings then? Little wonder that these unnamed travellers have provided the basis for Rubloff’s famous icon of the Holy Trinity. 

In a way, the same scenario is played out in the gospel story of Mary and Martha. Here we see again the hospitality of Martha. While Martha engaged herself with providing for the material need of their guest, Mary sat and listened to the Lord. The words of Jesus to Martha – “It is Mary who has chosen the better part” – have sometimes been used to justify the pre-eminence of contemplative life over political holiness. While it is true that communion with God is pre-eminent because it precedes and should inform our other actions, authentic Christian spirituality holds both prayer and action in some creative tension. True Christian life involves the activities of both Mary and Martha held together like the two faces of a coin. Mary and Martha present us with the two faces of the one Christian spirituality. While Mary represents the Christian life of prayer and worship, Martha symbolises the Christian life of active service in the world. None of these activities should be divorced from each other. The practice of one to the exclusion of the other renders Christian spirituality sterile.

The second reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians offers a kind of integration. Paul counts it a privilege to suffer in his own body in order to bring to the ‘pagans’ the revelation of God’s purpose, which was a mystery hidden for generations and centuries: “The mystery is Christ among you, your hope of glory.” Paul calls us to recognise the mystery of Christ among us, and the mystery of Christ in us; or put simply, the mystery of Christ in every human person. And this mystery, for him, is our hope for glory. Our hope for glory therefore lies in knowing and serving Christ who is in us and in one another. Here, we can discern the two-pronged thrust: the Christ in us and the Christ we serve in one another. We commune with Christ (i.e., Christ in us) through prayer, worship, sacred readings and the sacraments. We serve Christ (i.e., the Christ in others) by our generous offer to assist anyone in need, by our readiness to contribute whatever we can for the good of the society and the well being of men and women of our time.