The Encouraging Thomist

I. "Oh, I'm just such a Martha,  but I wish I could be a Mary." "Oh, Jillian is such a Martha,  she just works and works and works." Anyone ever heard that phrase before?  That someone is a "Martha"   and wishes they could be a "Mary?" Well, I wonder where on earth that comparison came from?  It seems so familiar,   almost as if it's been told for a long time...    (turn to the side, pick up cell phone)     Wait, what's that, Holy Spirit?      Oh! This comes from the story from St. Luke's Gospel,       right! The one we just read this morning! Martha and Mary, the sisters in the town of Bethany.  In this one story,   are sometimes treated as if they are ONLY like this particular passage describes them.  Martha, being the one who just works away   and Mary the one who humbly sits at Jesus's feet while he teaches. Martha, who worries about the details and gets i...

The Good Samaritan Icon I. Has anyone here been stuck on the side of the road before? Was it because your car broke down?  Did you have a flat tire?   Did you have a sick child that was about to puke all over the back of your headrest,    and you needed to take evasive action? There are many reasons why people end up pulling over to the side of the highway.  But, some are more severe than others. There was a story I read once about a police officer  who was the first person to come upon a vehicle that had flipped over. The officer pulled over and went to the side of the road  and hurried up to the car to discover a young man unconscious in the driver's seat,   with a piece of metal embedded in his neck,    bleeding from the large artery in his neck. There was very little the officer could do other than try to stop the bleeding  and call for immediate backup. The officer, with both hands planted firmly ne...