July 21, 2013
where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him.
She had a sister named Mary
who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak.
Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said,
“Lord, do you not care
that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving?
Tell her to help me.”
The Lord said to her in reply,
“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.
There is need of only one thing.
Mary has chosen the better part
and it will not be taken from her.”
You only need one thing!
We know well enough that the gospels are not 'historical records' in the sense that they give the actual series of events that occurred in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. They are compilations of sayings of his, accounts of some episodes in his life, with many stories that he used as part of his teaching method. Today's cameo is quite amazing in its neat structure, its detail, and its brevity.
One commentator I read suggests that its positioning immediately after the parable of the Good Samaritain is an attempt to counter a mis-reading of that lesson whereby some christians at the time were going all out in doing good works, as if that was the be all and end all of following Jesus. Perhaps this was Luke's intention, but the picture he draws is full of other possibilities, all linked to the key statement: You only need one thing!
What is this one thing?
Too easy to say it is 'contemplation' which is the soul of the apostolate (to quote the title of a major pastoral work from the age of Catholic Action). Too easy to say 'prayer', or even to say 'sitting at the feet of the Lord is worshipful silence'.
One problem I see with this last image, of Mary sitting in worshipful silence at the feet of Jesus, is that one may be led to think of it as 'doing' the right thing. This may lead you to assume that 'saying prayers' like chanting the Divine Office in choir, singing the Liturgy, saying the Rosary or reciting the psalms, spending hours in adoration at the court of Christ the King splendidly enthroned in the monstrance, or whatever - all these may be just another form of 'doing', and still they might not touch the 'one thing needed'.
But surely contemplation (or 'meditation', the current word for it) must be the one thing necessary for a spiritual life in a follower of Jesus. Again I think even one who practices daily meditation may not necessarily have got it - that one thing they need.
I sometimes like to think of the scriptures as a collection of jumbled items that we have to sort, and the clue is always that we must find nourishment for life in what we put together. If it is not nourishing, then we've got it wrong. On the other hand, items that may seem unconnected, when put together can throw light on some dimension of life and hence be nourishing.
'Mary sat beside Jesus at his feet listening to him.'
Listening - not dreaming the time away, 'lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art', but actively working through whatever he was saying, looking for meanings, applications, opportunities, reasons to hope, ways of showing love, looking for ways to become the person he wanted her to become. Listening is a very active activity. Listening involves a lot of thinking, of applying the mind to working things out.
'Blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it.' Jesus said that once, in response to a woman in a crowd when she called out in enthusiastic praise of his mother. This may mean those who hear the commandments and obey them. Or it may mean those who listen to the call and the challenge in the word of God wherever it comes to them from - like in the deep silence of conscience.
Somewhere in the OT a prophet put his finger on the problem with the people of his time: 'There is no one who thinks in his heart.'
I am going to suggest that the one thing you need is to think - in your heart.
Where else do you think? Well, in your head, of course, sorting, analysing, verifying, calculating, planning - all of which may take up much energy and yet miss the whole point of life. Examples come flooding in.
A bishop last week said that he did not have time to think too much about the problem of what to do with a paedophile priest because he was busy about many things in running the diocese. I'll bet he wishes now he had thought more deeply, thought in his heart about people, about the children, about their families...
He also admitted he had not read the files, not looked closely at this offender's record, because he found it too distasteful. Journalists and commentators are not letting him get away with that one. However, we all do it. We glance at things that concern our conscience, and quickly get back to 'doing something' when we find it too distasteful.
I am reading Chrissie Foster's book again. Not distasteful: sickening. It takes a cold hard resolve to look with conscience at what should trouble us. Our thanks to all the victims/survivors who have found the courage to tell us.
Everyone, I suggest, who thinks in his/her heart is profoundly humiliated and distressed by the falsehoods our political leaders swamp us with about the boat people and the crisis the policitians say they are causing.* Their scorn for thinking voters is matched only by their contempt for these destitute people who have spent their last reserves and risked their lives on treacherous seas in a last attempt to find a place to live. We have space. Nobody denies that. But our leaders are determined not to give these people a place to live. Many voters agree, of course, so conscience must cry out for truth and justice.
These are men, women and children like us, calling for help, calling to us to make a little room for them. Andrew Hamilton, reflecting on the pope's visit to Lampadusa, talks about three forms of intelligence, and describes what he calls 'emotional intelligence' in focusing conscience on the people in the boats:
Emotional intelligence means imagining ourselves on a boat with mothers and children fleeing from persecution, and looking into their faces as we board their boat, seize control and tow it back into Indonesian waters. It means looking into the face of a mother we have sent back to Indonesia as her child faces death because she cannot buy essential medicine. It means saying no to these ways of acting.
http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=36849#.UecVKtJkMys
Will we allow a government to send warships to threaten those people with guns to make them turn back? When our sailors are ordered to fire warning shots across the boats to terrify those people into turning back, will there be one who says "No - Sir!" ? Will we think about this in our heart, and find ourselves compelled to speak up, to shout, to yell? Or will we find it too distasteful to expose ourselves to the disdain of the majority?
What of the church?
What is the one thing necessary for the catholic community at this critical moment? Is it to find decent leaders who can draw together the unravelling threads, gather the lost sheep back into the fold, shore up the crumbling walls? Or are these the kind of things that Martha of the gospel would be busy with, while her sister focuses on the one thing we all need - being still, listening, wondering, thinking at the level of conscience, and waiting.
To wait is essential. Waiting until the next step becomes clear. And thinking - keeping the mind alert; 'watch and pray' as Jesus said to the disciples in the garden - waiting for God.
Mary of Magdala waited at the tomb.
The one who waits is quite different from the one who is busy planning, anxious to get a move on. The one who waits is peering into the mist for a sign, a shadow beckoning, a glimpse of what might be the step to take. Those catholics today who assemble in small communities may be the ones who are waiting, like the first disciples who waited in the upper room with the doors locked. What if the Spirit would lead us in a new direction: How can we be ready for that?
Ready - to go out, even when we see no more than one step ahead of us. I like to think that these small community eucharistic groups already represent that first step. We hardly need a reform of the hierarchy when so many feel the hierarchy has passed its use-by date. This is the Age of the Laity, isn't it? Then let us simply get on with it. The Spirit is moving. Be still. Listen well. Think hard. And bravely step out and do what conscience is telling to be done.
I read complaints that the bishops do not issue statements about this or that: refugees, prisons, sex-slavery, political corruption... See! Judge! Act! Think deeply. Listen in your heart, in your conscience. Perceive the spirit moving you and me and all of us.
Tony Lawless
* There's another excellent article in Eureka Street: http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=36846#.UeYTVI2nojE