Wednesday, July 29, 2026
Saint Martha - Memorial
John 11:19-27
Listen to the whole reading — MP3
First reading
1 John 4:7-16
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves has been born of God, and knows God. He who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love. By this God’s love was revealed in us, that God has sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God remains in us, and his love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we remain in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God. We know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and he who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.
Responsorial psalm
Psalms 34:1-1,2-3,4-5,6-7,8-9
I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise will always be in my mouth. My soul shall boast in the Lord. The humble shall hear of it, and be glad. Oh magnify the Lord with me. Let us exalt his name together. I sought the Lord, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears. They looked to him, and were radiant. Their faces shall never be covered with shame. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. The Lord’s angel encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them. Oh taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Oh fear the Lord, you his saints, for there is no lack with those who fear him.
Gospel
John 11:19-27
Many of the Jews had joined the women around Martha and Mary, to console them concerning their brother. Then when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary stayed in the house. Therefore Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you would have been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. Even now I know that, whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies. Whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, God’s Son, he who comes into the world.”
Lectio
There is a particular intimacy in the way Martha runs to meet Jesus while her grief is still raw. She does not pretend her wound away. "Lord, if you would have been here, my brother wouldn't have died." It is half accusation, half confession of faith—the words of someone who trusts Jesus enough to tell Him exactly where it hurts. And it is precisely into this honesty that Jesus speaks His astonishing claim: "I am the resurrection and the life." He does not first remove her sorrow; He gives her Himself. The question He asks her, "Do you believe this?", is not a test of doctrine but an invitation to stake her whole bereaved heart on Him.
John's letter tells us why such trust is possible: "Not that we loved God, but that he loved us." We do not climb our way into the divine life by the strength of our affection. Love comes to us first, descends to us in the sending of the Son, and only then awakens our own love in return. Martha's faith at the tomb is the fruit of having been loved before she ever knew how to ask. And the Psalm gives voice to what such a soul learns over time: "I sought the Lord, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears." The God who is love is not distant from our troubles; He encamps around us in them.
What strikes me is how ordinary Martha is—the busy one, the practical one, often remembered for her complaints in the kitchen. Yet here she makes one of the clearest confessions of faith in all the Gospels. Sanctity is not reserved for the contemplatives; it is offered to those who, in the middle of their loss and their labor, keep running out to meet the One who loves them first.
Where in your life are you, like Martha, saying "Lord, if you had been here" — naming a grief or a disappointment where you feel God arrived too late, and what would it mean to bring that exact complaint to Him today instead of burying it?
John says we cannot truly know God if we do not love the person in front of us — so is there someone right now whom you find difficult to love, and are you willing to believe that God's love for you came first precisely so that you could love them without waiting for them to deserve it?
Saint of the day
St. Martha - Memorial
Ora reads this aloud, every morning, free. Ora