Homily, Votive Mass of Mary, Seat of Wisdom
Closing Mass for the 13th Annual National Conference of the ICLE
July 18, 2025; Lincoln, Nebraska
Readings: Sir 24:1-4.18-21; Ps 147; Lk 10:38-42
Introduction
I have to be honest with you: the story of Martha and Mary is one that has always bothered me. Yes, I understand the symbolic meaning familiar to all of us, how Mary represents the contemplative life and life of prayer, and Martha the active life, and it’s the life of prayer that must take precedence in that all of our activity must flow from it. However, on the human level it has always bothered me how Martha seems to be given short shrift, with all of the hard work she’s doing to extend hospitality to our Lord. Perhaps better I should say that it used to bother me. That is, it did, until I reflected on my own personal experience.
This is when I recalled that there have been times in my life when I went to visit a friend who I had not seen in a while, and the friend is up scurrying about making sure all of my needs are taken care of: refilling my glass, putting more nibbles on the table, making sure everything is just right. And I end up feeling frustrated, because all I really want to do is just sit there and visit with my friend and catch up with each other on our lives. And it keeps getting interrupted! Sometimes you just want to be in the presence of the one you love, and that is enough.
True Wisdom
It might be easy for us to think that Marta felt resentful of her sister Mary for being praised by our Lord, while she probably felt unappreciated. She was certainly the one always putting her Lord first. But if we dig deeper into the dynamics of this family we will see that it’s not really that way. St. John also recounts a story about this family in his Gospel, the story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead.
As John relates it to us, Martha goes out to meet Jesus before he reaches the entrance to the village, while Mary stays at home. Martha knew he would be coming to comfort her and her sister over the loss of their brother, and when she hears that he is on the way she goes out to meet him before he enters the town. Why? Because right before this incident, Jesus had gotten the leaders of his own people upset at him, and they were getting ready to stone him before he slipped away. So Martha, clearly, was worried about his safety. But then after she encounters him, she goes back to the house to call her sister Mary. She tells her, “The teacher is here and is asking for you” – thus showing the care and affection she had for her sister. And what does Mary do? St. John tells us: “As soon as she heard this, she rose quickly and went to him.” That is, Mary is anything but lazy.
It is noteworthy, too, that both of them manifest trust in the Lord. Upon greeting him they do not ask him for anything; rather, they recognize his power from beyond human capacities and manifest their trust that he will do what is best. They say the same thing to him: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Martha, though, is the one to go beyond this and manifest Resurrection faith in her Lord. Jesus says to her, “‘I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’” Her response is her profession of faith: “‘Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.’” She certainly could not have arrived at such faith without listening to Jesus and learning from him.
The Personification of Wisdom
There is an important lesson here for us: for the acquisition of true wisdom, knowledge alone is not enough. To arrive at wisdom, knowledge must be accompanied by a life of virtue, and, most especially, the one virtue that is the door to all the rest: humility. That is, to arrive at true wisdom, the wisdom that is from above: the divine, heavenly wisdom, the wisdom that is so unlike worldly (so-called) “wisdom.” Wisdom in the worldly sense means being clever, crafty, scheming, cynical; it is all for serving a selfish end, it is all self-referential. One will never arrive at the true human good that way. Humility is what is required to recognize that wisdom is, ultimately, a gift from God, not our own human doing – thus Jesus’ injunction to us to become like little children if we wish to enter the Kingdom of God. Little children are closer to the ground! And, in the ancient world, children held no value as such – their value was only potential, it could only be realized after reaching adulthood.
Wisdom is personified in the Wisdom literature of the Old Testament as a way of underscoring that it is a divine reality, it proceeds from the mouth of God. We heard that in our first reading where, in the Book of Sirach, wisdom extols her virtues. Wisdom is omnipresent, always leading and guiding God’s people, from very start (creation): “From the mouth of the Most High I came forth, and covered the earth like a mist”, so recalling the water present at the creation of the world. She goes on: “In the heights of heaven I dwelt, and my throne was in a pillar of cloud” – an allusion to the cloud that guided God’s people in their wanderings in the Sinai desert. And she remains present in the midst of God’s people: “In the holy tent I ministered before him, and so I was established in Zion.”
She is a divine reality which is inexhaustible; the one who seeks her will always be left yearning for more, even after finding her: “Those who eat of me will hunger still, those who drink of me will thirst for more.” Such wisdom is the path to the true human good, true human flourishing: “Whoever obeys me will not be put to shame, and those who serve me will never go astray.”
Modeled in Our Lady
As you know well, this all begins with a sense of wonder. Contemplation is the starting point, which is why Mary chose the better part – it is the first and constant step which always must be taken to acquire wisdom. But, again, it must be humble contemplation. We therefore look to our Blessed Mother as a model, and in so doing we celebrate this Votive Mass under her title “Seat of Wisdom.” We hear some insightful reflections on this from the 19th century saint of the Russian Orthodox Church, St. Philaret of Moscow. He is considered to be the greatest preacher in the entire history of their Church, their “Golden Mouth” – the equivalent of St. John Chrysostom to the Greek Orthodox, or St. Leo the Great, St. Gregory the Great, or St. Ambrose for us Catholics.
In his sermon on the Annunciation entitled “Mary’s Humble Wisdom”, St. Philaret speaks of how we need to learn from Mary that the heart of solitude is “humble contemplation of God.” He says that without that, any solitude we might think is opening our mind in wonder to contemplate the mysteries of heaven and earth will actually lead us to vice and not virtue: “empty stubbornness or even cruel hatred of others, a nest of evil thoughts in the abode of a spirit of madness.”[1] We know well today what he was talking about! And he wrote this in 1825!
Instead, he says, we must learn solitude from the Mother of God, whose wisdom was rooted in humility, and whose humility was protected and preserved by her wisdom. As he says: “She who was to become the Mother of the self-emptying Word of God had humble wisdom and wise humility to an advanced degree. Her great wisdom was protected from pride and brazenness by humility, and her humility was cultivated by wisdom in such a way that there would be nothing base in it, and that it would be unassuming, pure, and simple.”[2]
The Stars of the Future
Of course, these virtues and practices must be learned early in life, if one is to maximize the realization of his or her God-given potential in life. Thank you for what you do for that; thank you for inculcating in children and young people that sense of humble contemplation: learning both the natural mysteries of the created universe and the spiritual mysteries of divine revelation, all in an environment of prayer, reverence, contemplation and beauty – precisely where knowledge and virtue are together acquired.
Thanks to you, these children will be stars: not only in the sense of the spiritual, moral and personal excellence they will achieve with their lives. There is another sense as well in which your students will become stars.
My father was a commercial fishman, and I spent a lot of time on his boat when he would prepare it for the fishing season. I still recall the old-fashioned sextant he kept on the bridge. And it wasn’t just decoration or nostalgia; it’s what he used for navigation! By observing the stars and knowing how to read them using that sextant, he could reach the safety of the port that was his destination. Likewise, your students will be the stars by which the society of their adulthood will be able to navigate toward the true human good, and soak in the true, divine wisdom that is the gift that proceeds from the mouth of God.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I unite my voice to that of the psalmist in the prayer of Psalm 90:
Fill us at daybreak with your mercy,
that all our days we may sing for joy.
…
Show your deeds to your servants,
your glory to their children.
May the favor of the Lord our God be ours.
Prosper the work of our hands!
Prosper the work of our hands!
And may the Lord our God prosper the work of your hands – and of your hearts and voices as well – for the sake of the next generation of His people. Amen.
[1] Saint Philaret of Moscow, All Generations Will Call Me Blessed: Sermons on the Mother of God (Riverside: Patristic Nectar Publications, 2022): The Virgin’s Humble Wisdom, p. 273.
[2] Ibid., p. 276.
