Today's devotion: Saint Martha of Bethany, an evangelical personage

29 JULY

SAINT MARTH OF BETANIA

sec. THE

Martha is the sister of Mary and Lazarus of Bethany. In their hospitable home Jesus loved to stay during the preaching in Judea. On the occasion of one of these visits we know Marta. The Gospel presents her to us as the housewife, solicitous and busy to welcome the welcome guest, while her sister Mary prefers to stay quiet listening to the words of the Master. The disheartened and misunderstood profession of housewife is redeemed by this active saint named Marta, which simply means "lady". Martha reappears in the Gospel in the dramatic episode of the resurrection of Lazarus, where she implicitly asks for the miracle with a simple and stupendous profession of faith in the Savior's omnipotence, in the resurrection of the dead and in the divinity of Christ, and during a banquet in which Lazarus himself participates , recently resurrected, and also this time he presents himself as a handyman. The first to dedicate a liturgical celebration to St. Martha were the Franciscans, in 1262. (Avvenire)

PRAYER TO SANTA MARTA

We confidently turn to you. We confide our difficulties and sufferings to you. Help us to recognize in our existence the luminous presence of the Lord as you have hosted and served him in the house of Bethany. With your testimony, by praying and doing good you have known how to fight evil; it also helps us to reject what is bad, and everything that leads you. Help us to live the sentiments and attitudes of Jesus and to remain with him in the love of the Father, to become builders of peace and justice, always ready to welcome and help others. Protect our families, support our journey and keep our hope steadfast in Christ, resurrection on the way. Amen.

PRAYER TO SANTA MARTA DI BETANIA

“Admirable Virgo, with full confidence I appeal to you. I confide in you hoping that you will fulfill me in my needs and that you will help me in my human trial. Thanking you in advance, I promise to spread this prayer. Comfort me, I beg you in all my needs and difficulties. Reminding me of the profound joy that filled your heart when meeting the Savior of the world in your home in Bethany. I invoke you: assist me as well as my loved ones, so that I remain in union with God and that I deserve to be fulfilled in my needs, in particular in the need that weighs on me .... (say the grace you want) With full confidence please, You, my auditor: overcome the difficulties that oppress me as well as you have conquered the perfidious dragon that has remained conquered under your foot. Amen"

Our father; Ave Maria; Glory to the father

S. Marta pray for us

Happy are those who deserved to receive the Lord in their home

The words of our Lord Jesus Christ want to remind us that there is a single goal to which we aim, when we tire in the various occupations of this world. We tend to you while we are pilgrims and not yet stable; on the way and not yet at home; in desire and not yet in fulfillment. But we must strive without listlessness and without intermission, in order to finally reach our goal one day. Martha and Mary were two sisters, not only on the level of nature, but also on that of religion; both honored God, both served the Lord present in the flesh in perfect harmony of feelings. Martha welcomed him as pilgrims are accustomed to, and yet she welcomed the Lord as a servant, the Savior as an infirm, the Creator as a creature; she welcomed him to feed him in her body while she was to feed on the Spirit. In fact, the Lord wanted to take the form of the slave and be nourished in this form by the servants, by deign not by condition. In fact, this too was a deign, that is, offering oneself to be nourished: he had a body in which he felt hungry and thirsty.
Let the rest of you, Martha, be said with your good peace, you, already blessed for your commendable service, as a reward ask for rest. Now you are immersed in multiple matters, you want to restore mortal bodies, even if of holy people. But tell me: When you come to that homeland, will you find the pilgrim to be welcomed as a guest? Will you find the hungry to break the bread? Thirsty to drink? The sick to visit? The quarrelsome to bring back to peace? The dead man to be buried?
There will be no place up there for all this. So what will there be? What Mary has chosen: there we will be fed, we will not feed. Therefore what Mary has chosen here will be complete and perfect: from that rich table she collected the crumbs of the word of the Lord. And do you really want to know what's up there? The Lord himself affirms of his servants: "Truly I say to you, he will have them put at the table and will come to serve them" (Lk 12:37).