“Mahthah, Mahthah”

Taking you All Saints parishoners back to the days of Fr. Hoppough, Fr. Flood, and Fr. Vito (“deeyah”).  Fr Hoppough has this way of saying “ar” like “ah”.  This comes up every time the Gospel is the reading where Martha and Mary are attending to Jesus in Bethany.

My sister shared a story with me today that moved me, and I wanted to pass it along to you all.  She was having a discussion with her daughter on the way home from a medical appointment and the subject of Lazarus and death came up.

Jesus heard that his very good friend Lazarus was sick, but lollygags 3 days before going to Bethany(!), if you remember the Gospel passage.   My sister, in a moment of extreme insightfulness, had the reflection that when we are pestering the Lord for something and it doesn’t seem like He’s answering, He just might have something better in store, like resurrection instead of healing.

Here I want to quote, because I love voices:

“The girls have been watching a lot of Mary Tyler Moore, so I said, ‘Imagine what Martha said to Jesus, but in Rhoda Morgenstern’s voice. “If you had been here, he wouldn’t have died!!!!!” (It’s actually kind of fun to yell at Jesus in Rhoda’s voice.) I said, imagine you had a brother who was sick… and Jesus showed up just a little too late, what would you say . . . oh . . . duh . . . and your brother’s birthday was on the feast of St. Martha. . . .'”

God works in mysterious ways.  Thanks to my sister, we now have another patron to pray to, who is good about nagging Jesus to get things done!

And remember, He might have something better in store.

PS – I Love conversations like this.  Sitting around and talking about football bores me.  And when I got this email today I was just floored.