HOMILY PRONOUNCED BY MONS. DIEGO MONROY PONCE; GENERAL AND EPISCOPAL VICAR OF GUADALUPE, RECTOR OF THE SANCTUARY.
ORDINARY XVI SUNDAY

Sunday, July 22nd of 2007

My dear brothers and sisters, faithful lays of Christ, beloved brothers and sisters in the consecrated life. My dear brothers in the sacerdotal ministry, deans, chaplains, chapter of Guadalupe, let us praise Lord our God, because when he sent his loved son to us, he became in guest of the humanity. “The Word became a human being and lived here with us”. He became in our host in the eternal life, by his death and resurrection.

The hospitality of the towns of the Middle East is something so singular and characteristic that is something proverbial and sacred. This cultural characteristic, my dear brothers, is so important to understand not only the first reading that we have proclaimed but also the Gospel of Saint Luke in this Sunday.

In the first reading from today, we listened to a fragment of the book of the Genesis, in which three mysterious personages were before the tent of Abraham in the sacred tree of Mamre. Abraham does not avoid efforts to take care of those guests giving them all the things that they need to recover from the large and warm way. The two sisters from Betania, Martha and Mary, also give welcome and friendship to Jesus; specially Martha that made many efforts to carry out the service; specially for the people that are in need.

The hospitality of Abraham before God, who passes as a person that needs, is rewarded with the fertility, incomparable blessing in the biblical mentality. Still more by his hospitality, Abraham became in a friend of God and intercessor of these towns that have rejected the divine visit and that have profaned it with their disordered conduct. Let us remember Sodom and Gomorrah, their sin has not allowed recognizing the presence of God between them, when he passes by their streets.

In the Gospel, we see Jesús that praises the hospitality of Mary because she receives him, she welcomes him and she shares with him; so, it is necessary, my dear brothers, to open ourselves to the passage of God by our life. It is determinant that we are sensible and that we are attentive to his presence to welcome him, to listen to him and to serve him as he wants to be served. All this occurs daily, not only in the cult and in the prayer; there begins, and of a special way in the Eucharist, but if it does not take us to the encounter with the others, specially with whom need affection, material things, health and all that is necessary, we can not say that we are serving God totally.

My brothers, today the number of people, that are surrounded by others and that experience themselves tremendously alone, grows; we have to take them to an encounter with whom is the divine guest, that is in us and that is more real than ourselves.

In a so inhospitable world that does not facilitate the good communication between people, the attitude of Abraham and the one of the two sisters, Martha and Mary, give us an eloquent lesson of hospitality. They invite us to have an open heart for the others, we do not need to stew a fattened bull calf to them, as Abraham did every time, or that we remove all the kitchen as Mary did; frequently what the others expect from us is interest, attention, cosy face, a friendly word, a handshake, a sincere hug.

In addition to the hospitality, there is something more that the Lord wants to teach us in this Sunday: to discover in the fellow the same God, the same Christ. To give importance to the prayer, to the contemplation, to the listening of the word of God, but also to the attention to the others, and to the compromise with the others. Abraham sees God in the three pilgrims, and the sisters of the Gospel, Martha and Mary, know that they are lodging to the messiah.

Those that we have the high honor to serve in this little house of our little girl and little mother, Holy Mary of Guadalupe, we want to be conscientious that we are called to discover in the pilgrims or in the people that come here, the mysterious visit of God. For that reason we (all the agents of Pastoral of this Basilica) constantly ask ourselves: What do the pilgrims expect from us? Interest, attention, a friendly word, and to be taken to the experience of the encounter with the alive, close, good God, through this tender, sweet and calm face, of our little mother Holy Mary of Guadalupe and also in all of us, agents of Pastoral, with a theological attitude: to know how discover in the pilgrim to the same God, to the same Christ Jesus that says to us: “When you do something for one of my smallest brothers, you are doing it to me”.

Dear brothers and sisters, before the complaint of Martha, Jesus reminds amiably her that only one thing is necessary. Mary chose the best part, because she took advantage of the occasion of having the teacher in house and that she can listen to him. The essential is not the material things; it is the attentive listening of the word of God that illuminates our lives.

Let us ask the Lord that he grants us to unite the two attitudes in our lives, the one of Martha and the one of Mary, it means, the charity, the prayer and the listening are complementary, each Christian must know how to unite the two dimensions in his life. We have to be hospitable, amiable, but also we have to be the disciples of Christ, men of prayer, of inner life, with time for the others, but also for ourselves and for God.

I insist, my brothers, to be people of prayer, of contemplation, of the inner reflection and of celebration with the community, but also being responsible in the service, we have to be willing to act and to give ourselves to the generous and serviceable work. The union with Christ is nourished in a privileged way by the Eucharist, in the Holy mass in which we participate every Sunday with devotion and enthusiasm, and that it must have its translation in its charity, in the service with the ones that are alive, with the ones that live with us. Jesus does not disapprove the work of Martha, but he taught her a lesson: “you must know how to find time to the listening of faith and of the prayer of the God’s word.”

My dear brothers and sisters, let us bless the Lord, let us thank God for the word that he gives us this Sunday, and may through the same light we reconstruct our hierarchy of values and may this has concrete effects in the daily life; let us imitate our little girl and mother Holy Mary of Guadalupe, who is teacher of hospitality, when she kept her son (the God’s son) in her womb, in order to open ourselves (with her help) to God in the presence of whom needs more.

Amen.