CORRECTIONS -

 SECOND DRAFTS

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this feast of St. Martha - July 29^th, is, “Corrections - Second Drafts.”

There are 2 choices for a Gospel reading for today: John 11: 19-27 when Martha proclaims her belief in Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God: he who is to come into the world”; and Luke 10: 38-40 where Jesus comes to Martha and Mary’s house and Mary ends up being praised and Martha is corrected or chided by Jesus for being anxious and upset about many things - and Mary your sister has chosen the better part.

I chose the Gospel from John to read today - only because we heard the other gospel 2 times recently.

As I read over John’s story about Martha - there are only 2 stories about Martha in the gospels - I got the thought: maybe someone said Martha was corrected too tough by Jesus - maybe someone should give her a better story.

I doubt that is what happened, but I do know from taking many courses and workshops on our Sacred Scriptures - the Bible is a lot of re-writes.

The Catholic documents on the Bible certainly spell out that we Catholics are not fundamentalists. God did not tell the different authors to grab a quill - some parchment - and God dictated word for word the Bible for us.

Not all accept this. I am aware of that - and I also learned not to fight about this. And smile - because in today’s first reading from Exodus we heard God engraved by himself the ten commandments on tablets  - with writing on both sides.

CORRECTIONS - SECOND DRAFTS

The title of my homily is, “Corrections - Second Drafts”

Anyone who writes - knows writing is rewriting. Writing is second and third and fourth drafts. Writing is asking others for comments. Pick up most books and you’ll find in the introduction or first few pages - the author thanking someone for reading their manuscript and making comments, suggestions, and corrections.

How many times have we seen a movie scene with someone at a typewriter - or writing - and they are crumbling up paper after paper - till they get what they want to say correct.

The beauty of computers is you can do this much easier - writing and re-writing and re-drafting our thoughts.

OUR LIFE

Who Moses was and who Martha was - was who Moses was and who Martha was.

The person whose life we can correct and re-draft - and freshen up - is me, myself and I.

Conversion is possible. We can come out as a new edition.

I’m not talking about lies - but I am talking about taking a fresh look at our life - and bring all to Jesus and have him bring us resurrection and new life.

We can glory in our mistakes as the saints have - but only if we have learned from them - grown in understanding from them - and can laugh with God about life with them..

One of the definitions of a saint that I love is from Ambrose Bierce who defined a saint as: “Saint: A dead sinner revised and edited.”

CONCLUSION

So if we’re still alive - the call is to become the best we can become - the call is for a second or third or fourth edition - containing the learning we have picked up from life - especially our mistakes.