Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - “In the course of their journey he came to a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. She had a sister called Mary, who sat down at the Lord's feet and listened to him speaking.Now Martha, who was distracted with all the serving, came to him and said, 'Lord, do you not care that my sister is leaving me to do the serving all by myself? Please tell her to help me. 'But the Lord answered, 'Martha, Martha,' he said, 'you worry and fret about so many things,4and yet few are needed, indeed only one. It is Mary who has chosen the better part, and it is not to be taken from her.' ” (Lk 10, 38-42).
This Gospel passage proclaimed recently in our churches is disturbingly relevant today. There can be no doubt that if we wish to be pleasing to the Lord we must imitate Mary rather than Martha, who concentrated on 'all the serving' rather than on Jesus. We too, in an epoch of a thousand worries and anxieties, face a basic decision: to be like Mary or like Martha.
Often we have the impression that being with Jesus, listening to His Word, adoring his Eucharistic Presence, sensing His amiability in the silence … is a waste of time. Too often we need to “do something” like Martha in order to feel at ease, to make a good impression on others and receive gratification, and we fail to see that in this way we are not making room for the Divine Guest, without whom all our doing is worth little.
How wonderful it is to enter a church and find people adoring the Lord in the Sacred Host, imitating Mary, concerned with nothing else, savouring the divine Presence. Being with Jesus simply because He deserves it, this was Mary's reason!
It is so easy to lose sight of the Lord when we let ourselves become absorbed in "all the serving" which prevents the soul from resting in God. When a person goes round in circles, preoccupied with earning, the end result can only be anxiety, since only God can quench the thirst of man. The one who gives central place to the glory of God, is not concerned for his own interests but seeks only to please the Lord in everything; joy will soon come because the Holy Spirit will rest in the one who sincerely welcomes Him to the centre of his heart. For this soul, Jesus becomes the “the better part, and it is not to be taken from him ”!
A magnificent psalm which expresses all this is Psalm 16: “The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup, you hold my lot”. The Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI in his discourse referred to this psalm applying it to priests who, with their celibacy, incarnate a vocation totally consecrated to God: “The priest must truly know God from within and thus bring him to men and women: this is the prime service that contemporary humanity needs. If this centrality of God in a priest's life is lost, little by little the zeal in his actions is lost. In an excess of external things the centre that gives meaning to all things and leads them back to unity is missing. There, the foundation of life, the "earth" upon which all this can stand and prosper, is missing. Celibacy, in force for Bishops throughout the Eastern and Western Church and, according to a tradition that dates back to an epoch close to that of the Apostles, for priests in general in the Latin Church, can only be understood and lived if is based on this basic structure. The solely pragmatic reasons, the reference to greater availability, is not enough: such a greater availability of time could easily become also a form of egoism that saves a person from the sacrifices and efforts demanded by the reciprocal acceptance and forbearance in matrimony; thus, it could lead to a spiritual impoverishment or to hardening of the heart. The true foundation of celibacy can be contained in the phrase: Dominus pars - You are my land. It can only be theocentric.” (Benedict XVI, Discourse to the Roman Curia, 22 December 2006).
The Blessed Virgin Mary, a woman who listened, was not only at the feet of Jesus under the Cross as the Mother of Sorrows, she was close to him all through his life, indissolubly united with His Work of Redemption. Contemplating Her, consecrating one's self to Her, we find the strength to stay at the feet of Jesus, rather than taking His place, to serve Him with our whole self, putting nothing before His infinite Love. This is the “Marian way” walked by Mary and also by Martha: forgetting self to make room for the Beloved, and to give Him to others! (Agenzia Fides 25/7/2007; righe 54, parole 843)
