Negotiating and bargaining are so much a part of our culture that we are probably inclined to interpret the events narrated in today's Liturgy of the Word as bargaining. They are, however, something quite unlike bargaining.

In today's Gospel reading, Martha's complaint is as much about Jesus as it is about Mary.

All of the central characters in the parable of the Good Samaritan would have agreed on what constituted holiness; one of them came to a very different conclusion about how to live a holy life.