Luke 10:38-42

Jesus 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 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, and yet few are needed, indeed only one. It is Mary who has chosen the better part; it is not to be taken from her.’

Reflection 

Jesus politely declined Martha’s request to tell Mary to help her. Mary’s listening to him was not to be sacrificed to Martha’s need. 

Could both Martha and Mary have sat at the Lord’s feet? There would have been no meal, the central act of hospitality, without Martha’s work. And the next time Jesus visits the house of Martha, Mary and Lazarus, it is Martha whose faith-filled words are only rivalled by those of Peter: “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”

In this Year of Faith Martha is a woman of faith. She combines solid faith with humility, working in the background to meet the needs of others. Perhaps Jesus wasn’t proposing that contemplative Mary was somehow “better”, but indicating to faith-filled Martha just how much he wanted her to be near him too.

There is no doubt that the Lord is present in the work we do, and any action can be imbued with prayer or in itself be a form of prayer. As St Teresa of Avila said: “If obedience sends you to the kitchen, remember that the Lord walks among the pots and pans and that he will keep you in inward tasks and in outward ones too”.

The real problem is when constantly doing things squeezes periods of listening and praying out of our lives. Even someone called to a very active ministry cannot sustain it without giving some time to sitting at the Lord’s feet. The Mary and Martha dimensions of our spiritual lives are finely balanced, and the balance is different for each of us. It is often our Mary dimension which suffers in a busy world.

Our Martha dimension needs to learn to care for and appreciate our Mary dimension.