We have a choice of Gospel today. Taking both together and, perhaps, extending the reading from John to verse 37 we have a realistic picture of a "good" family to contemplate. Mary and Martha have very different characters. Both are genuine believers and open, generous people. Martha however, is the active type while Mary is definitely a contemplative. Obviously Martha is exasperated with Mary to the point where she complains to Jesus when she might have been expected to conceal a family row from a distinguished guest. Nevertheless there is a warm bond between them as we can see in John 11:27-37. Their love is the love of friendship and family affection but, certainly with overtones of the love that we meet in the first reading.

The love with which God is willing to endow us is a love based on an appreciation of who the human person really is. Some years ago a writer in Newsweek told us who we are. "We are not congealed stardust, an accidental byproduct of cosmic chemistry. We are not just something, we are some ONE...The promise at the heart of the faith; God was made man that we might become gods"

Along with that realization comes another. Love has to be self-sacrificing. Such a love will at times force us to forget the love of self for the love of the other. A family a society based on such love will last ,despite the inevitable tensions between different individuals living together.