July 28, 2019

16^th Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

Let’s Not Separate These Sisters

Msgr. Thomas Gervasio

One of my childhood memories is that at our door punctually at 10:15 every Sunday morning would be Pasquale, a distant cousin of my father. By that time on Sunday, my mother was already being a “Martha” busy preparing Sunday dinner. My mother’s reaction was always the same, a cordial welcome and coffee and cake served along with the directive I would hear before I could run off…”Tom, keep Uncle Pasquale company.” It was the last thing I wanted, or any boy would want to do but over the years, I took my place there taking in his pearls of wisdom. (Somehow my sisters disappeared every Sunday at 10:15!)
 
That scene of hospitality allows me to connect with today’s Gospel account. At first, Mary is difficult to understand. She leaves the work to her sister, Martha so that could sit at the feet of Our Lord to listen and learn. She appears passive, dreamy, or even lazy.
 
This leads most of us to empathize with Martha. We might feel the need to put in a good word for her. After all, she is active, a diligent homemaker, concerned with the caring for her guests. We can understand Martha’s frustration. It is not hard to imagine that Martha banged the pots and pans about so that Mary would be drawn into the kitchen. I imagine Martha rolling her eyes or nodding her head in the direction of the kitchen, silently messaging the need for help. But to no avail. Irritated at the lack of support, Martha speaks up but rather than going to Mary she goes to Jesus, appealing to his sense of justice. She is confident that he will take her side. But Martha does not get the support she expects. He won’t turn Mary over for kitchen duty and commends her for choosing “the better part.”
 
What is the lesson here? Our Lord did not take issue with Martha’s hospitality, her expression of affection and respect, but with her distraction, her anxiety. Jesus does not tell Martha to abandon her duties. He doesn’t say, “Martha, take the pot off the fire, take off your apron.”
 
What Jesus does say to Martha is, “Learn something from Mary. She knows, she sees something you don’t, because you are too busy, too anxious, too preoccupied by many things.
 
The Lord does not praise Mary for doing nothing but commends her for being able to recognize the exceptional moment, the opportunity to “take in” the words of eternal life.
 
Through his friends Martha and Mary the Lord challenges us to keep our life in balance. In our spiritual lives, there must always be a harmony between action and contemplation. Martha and Mary remind us that prayer and work are not opposed to one another. They need to be integrated.
 
Pope John Paul I, (Albino Luciani) conveyed this truth in his book, Illustrissimi, a collection of letters to great persons. In it he quotes the reply St. Francis deSales made to a woman who wrote to him describing the many ways she was being a person of prayer. His reply must have surely surprised her, coming as it did from her bishop, Francis:

Madame, you must abbreviate your prayers a bit, so as to not compromise your household duties. You are married; be a complete wife, without excessive bashfulness: do not bore your family, spending too much time in church; have such devotion as to make your husband love it, but this will happen only if he feels that you are his.

 The Pope concludes:

Here is the ideal of the love of God lived in the midst of the world ...men and women should have wings to fly toward God with loving prayer; let them also have feet to walk graciously among other men and women; and let them not have “grim faces,” but smiling ones, knowing that they are heading for the happy house of the Lord.

We pray today: “Give us the heart of Mary and the hands of Martha for we need both in serving you.”