The Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to wise men. Judge what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, isn't it a sharing of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, isn't it a sharing of the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf of bread, we, who are many, are one body; for we all partake of the one loaf of bread. Consider Israel according to the flesh. Don't those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar?
What am I saying then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I don't desire that you would have fellowship with demons. You can't both drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You can't both partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of demons. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?
What will I give to the Lord for all his benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation, and call on the Lord's name.
I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving, And will call on the Lord's name. I will pay my vows to the Lord, Yes, in the presence of all his people.
"For there is no good tree that produces rotten fruit, nor again a rotten tree that produces good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. For people don't gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings out that which is good, and the evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings out that which is evil, for out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks.
"Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' and don't do the things which I say? Everyone who comes to me, and hears my words and does them, I will show you who he is like. He is like a man building a house, who dug and went deep and laid a foundation on the rock. When a flood arose, the stream broke against that house, and could not shake it, because it was founded on the rock. But he who hears and doesn't do, is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream broke, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great."
Today the Church pauses to honor the Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary — a feast that celebrates not just a name, but a person whose entire life was a "yes" spoken from the depths of a faithful heart.
Consider how these three readings form a kind of architecture together. Paul warns the Corinthians about divided loyalties — you cannot drink from two cups, cannot serve two tables. The psalmist responds with a kind of answer: *this* is the cup worth taking up, the cup of salvation, the one that costs something and means something. And then Jesus, in the Gospel, gets to the root of it all. Good fruit comes from good trees. What we produce on the outside — our words, our choices, our habits — reveals what's actually happening on the inside.
The tension here is that most of us don't feel like we have dramatically divided loyalties. We're not sacrificing to idols. But Paul's concern is more subtle than that. It's about where we place our ultimate trust. Is it in the Lord's table, or in the smaller, shinier tables that promise comfort and security without cost?
Mary's name is held up today as a kind of answer to that question. Her whole life was built on the rock Jesus describes — not because she was immune to difficulty, but because she heard and *did*. She didn't just call him Lord. She let that lordship reshape everything.
What becomes clear is that the foundation isn't built in dramatic moments. It's built on ordinary Wednesday afternoons, in small acts of fidelity, in choosing the right cup again and again.
So here are the questions to carry through the day:
Where are we placing our quiet, daily trust — and does that match what we say we believe?
What fruit have our words and choices been producing lately, and what does that reveal about what's growing underneath?
What would it look like, in one concrete way today, to hear and *do* rather than just hear and nod?