1.Gen
18: 1-10a
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2. Col1:24-28
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Gospel: Lk
10:38-42
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Our Fundamental tasks: " The Lord of the
Work and the Work of the Lord"
In one of interior
parts of Africa, a missionary priest happened to be well committed in doing his job in that area
of African continent. In few years he had baptized many people and built a
church, a school and health center. Due to his restless work schedule he got sick
and had to be flown back to his native country for special treatment. After
many months he was well enough to return to Africa. However, after his arrival
in Africa, he was completely surprised, after he discovered that the entire
village abandoned his church and turned to a local evangelical preacher. Even
the church he built now had an evangelical signboard in front of it. " The
missionary priest out of curiosity asked, " what went wrong?" How did
his flourishing mission collapse overnight. " What did I do wrong?"
he asked this question to his formal church members. The truth hit him once
when a woman said to him, " Father, you did a lot for us. You gave our
children clothes and built up our village. However, there is one thing you
forgot and you did not do it. You did not bring us to know Jesus as our
personal Lord and Savior." Doing the work of the Lord is great. But
knowing the Lord of the work comes first.
In our today's gospel
we hear the story of two sisters, Martha who is busy with the work of the Lord
and Mary who is more interested in knowing
the Lord of the work. Let us understand the orientations of the two
sisters. First, Martha is a service oriented person as she is portrayed in the
gospel's scenario, second, Mary's orientation is relationship with Jesus. Like
the missionary in our story, Martha must have been shocked to hear the Lord
himself saying that it is relationship with Him that comes first, because
without it service is meaningless.
In our gospel story,
many people may think that Martha was the materialist and Mary the spiritual
one. The association of Martha with
materialism is easy to be made in the sense of original root of name,' Martha',
that in English language seems to rhyme with the word " matter."
However, this stream of thinking in
terms of separation between spirit and matter does not belong to the gospel of
Luke. In the gospel St. Luke the evangelist presents Martha and Mary as two
sisters who are both interested in the Lord, two women who both want to please
the Lord. The difference between them is the manner in which they go about
trying to please the Lord. As said before, Martha takes the way of service or
working for the Lord. Mary takes the way
of relationship or being with the Lord.
From the other
evangelist more especially St, Mark the evangelist, we understand that Jesus
called the apostles to follow him, he called them for dual purpose: " to be with him, and to be sent out to
proclaim the message." (Mark 3:14). The need on the one hand , is to
be with the Lord, to know him, to fellowship with him and be nourished by his
word and, on the other hand, to do the Lord's work, to serve the Lord in
others, to proclaim his message of love in word and deed, brings us to a
conflict. The issue is that which one should enjoy the priority? How much of my
time should I devote to being with the Lord, to prayer and listening to God's
word, and how much time to doing the work of the Lord? In spite of the urgent
need to throw ourselves into the work of the Lord, it is only logical to say
that my relationship with the Lord of the work comes before my involvement with
the work of the Lord.
We can ask ourselves
this question that what is the pivotal point of the story we have heard in our
today's gospel? I think the point of the story of Jesus with Mary and Martha is
not to invite us to choose between being a Martha or Mary. The true disciple
needs to be both Martha and Mary. We are challenged by the story in our today's
gospel on our priorities. What our most priorities? We are challenged to
understand that fellowship with the Lord, being with the Lord, and hearing His
word should always be given the first priority and should take precedence over
the work we do for the Lord. Do we really have a daily schedule of daily
fellowship with the Lord? Some fulfill this by assisting daily in the Eucharist
where they can also hear the word of God. Others schedule a holy hour or quiet
time when they can pray and read the word of God.
When Martha complains
that Mary is not helping her Jesus seems He doesn't even care, Jesus reprimands
her. His concern is not what she or Mary is doing but doing the will of God at
the moment and this is most important. That we must listen interiorly to the
Lord's direction and deeper needs of those around us.
Actually this might be
a strong and convincing reason why God created us with two eyes and two ears
but only one tongue. He wants us to speak less but see and listen more
especially in our hearts. Let us take this example that may help us to
understand the gospel reading, that washing a car is pretty much the same as
washing your heart. First the car must be still( must not be moving) so that it
can be washed. Likewise, the heart the heart must be silent so that it can
listen .God cannot speak to a noisy heart. Second, the car like the heart must
be obedient and submissive. God cannot speak to a heart that denies,
rationalizes or postpones. Third, the car is like the heart, must be open so
that all the deepest corners and chambers can be reached and cleaned. In the
same way, God cannot clean and heal a heart that is closed tight."
The women portrayed in
our today's gospel represent the two dimensions of our spiritual life. Martha
represents the active apostolic life because she was hard working and could even say selfless in what she was
doing. However, there is a danger. The danger is that even good works and
apostolate can leave the soul empty if we neglect our prayer and interior life.
Christ sees the effects in Martha: " you are anxious and concerned about
many things..." we can understand these dangerous attitude that Jesus saw
in Martha. He saw deep down inside of her the dangerous attitude of:
Resentment, Narrowness and Unkindness. Anxiety and worry as well. These were to
fill the vacuum left by a lack of serious prayer. The Lord will be pleased if
and only if we don't forget our soul with prayer and reflection.
Moreover, Mary is of the
contemplative life, as she sits down attentively listening and learning from
Christ and find deeper meaning in his teaching. Without attention to prayer soon
run the risk of having entered into our minds and hearts criteria and interests
that are very far from the heart of Christ whom we should desire to emulate.
However in this perspective we are also challenged by the fact that our love
must also become incarnate in whatever we do to meet the needs of others. That
is, Martha and Mary: work and contemplation, prayer and service. Listening and
doing. In a nut shell we need to have a balance between service and
contemplation. Good disciple prays and serves. There is no option between
active apostolic life and contemplative life because they are not in opposition
with each other but of complementary. We need the two in our lives as
Christians, it is not only because Jesus needs listeners, but He also needs
cooks.
beautiful story of the priest...a workaholic
JibuFuta