Martha, Mary and the Better Part

Source: At Jesus' Feet, Nathan Greene

Two Dimensions
Today's Gospel reading from Luke, tells the account of Jesus' encounter with Martha and Mary, sisters of Lazarus and close friends of our Lord who lived in Bethany. The two sisters represent "the two dimensions of the spiritual life." (Ignatius Study Bible). Martha represents the active life of Christian service, while Mary signifies the life of contemplation, of prayer. In the story, Martha is portrayed as hustling about serving the guests, while Mary remains at Christ's feet listening. Martha is agitated that Mary is not helping and complains to Jesus. He responds by saying. “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.” (Luke 10: 41-42)

Balanced Spiritual Life
I don't believe that Christ is telling Martha that service is bad, but instead he is telling her that the contemplative life is better. We would all do well to have a balance spiritual life of both contemplation and service. According to St. Josemaria:

Martha has come to be, as it were, the symbol of the active life, and Mary that of the contemplative life. However, for most Christians, called as they are to sanctify themselves in the middle of the world, action and contemplation cannot be regarded as two opposite ways of practising the Christian faith: an active life forgetful of union with God is useless and barren; but an apparent life of prayer which shows no concern for apostolate and the sanctification of ordinary things also fails to please God. The key lies in being able to combine these two lives, without either harming the other. Close union between action and contemplation can be achieved in very different ways, depending on the specific vocation each person is given by God. 

Far from being an obstacle, work should be a means and an occasion for a close relationship with our Lord, which is the most important thing in our life. 

Following this teaching of the Lord, the ordinary Christian should strive to attain an integrated life--an intense life of piety and external activity, orientated towards God, practised out of love for Him and with an upright intention, which expresses itself in apostolate, in everyday work, in doing the duties of one's state in life. "You must understand now more clearly that God is calling you to serve Him in and from the ordinary, material and secular activities of human life. He waits for us every day, in the laboratory, in the operating room, in the army barracks, in the university chair, in the factory, in the workshop, in the fields, in the home and in all the immense panorama of work. Understand this well: there is something holy, something divine, hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it is up to each of you to discover it [...]. There is no other way. Either we learn to find our Lord in ordinary, everyday life, or else we shall never find Him. That is why I can tell you that our age needs to give back to matter and to the most trivial occurrences and situations their noble and original meaning. It needs to restore them to the service of the Kingdom of God, to spiritualize them, turning them into a means and an occasion for a continuous meeting with Jesus Christ (St. J. Escriva, Conversations, 114).

The Better Part
For further reading on the "better part," I recommend reading the Catholic Spiritual Direction blog hosted by the author of the book The Better Part. Here's a sample of today's reflections from The Better Part app which explains how we can tell when our spiritual lives are out of balance:

The crucial sign that we may be following Martha’s footsteps a little too closely is a waning life of prayer. When we skimp on our prayer life, on that precious time that we spend, as Mary did, “at the Lord’s feet listening to him speaking,” we need to stop and check our spiritual vital signs. Maybe we have let ourselves become so “distracted with all the serving” that we have forgotten why we should be serving at all. (The Better Part, 188)

The Better Part, A Contemplative Life

At Jesus's Feet by Nathan Greene

In today's Gospel reading we are introduced to two sisters. Martha and Mary. The two sisters represent "the two dimensions of the spiritual life." (Ignatius Study Bible). Martha represents the active life of Christian service, while Mary signifies the life of contemplation, of prayer. In the story, Martha is portrayed as hustling about serving the guests, while Mary remains at Christ's feet listening. Martha is agitated that Mary is not helping and complains to Jesus. He responds by saying. “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.” (Luke 10: 41-41)

I don't believe that Christ is telling Martha that service is bad, but instead he is telling her that the contemplative life is better. We would all do well to have a balance spiritual life of both contemplation and service.

For further reading on the "better part," I recommend reading the Catholic Spiritual Direction blog hosted by the author of the book The Better Part.

Here's a sample of today's reflections from The Better Part app:

The crucial sign that we may be following Martha’s footsteps a little
too closely is a waning life of prayer. When we skimp on our prayer
life, on that precious time that we spend, as Mary did, “at the Lord’s
feet listening to him speaking,” we need to stop and check our
spiritual vital signs. Maybe we have let ourselves become so
“distracted with all the serving” that we have forgotten why we should
be serving at all.

Saint Talk: Martha, Martha Martha

At Jesus's Feet by Nathan Greene

July 29th is the feast day of St. Martha. She is a family favorite because Stacey, my wife, chose her as her patron when she was confirmed. I remember how seriously Stacey took her decision to find a patron for her confirmation. She wanted someone she relate to. She found this in St. Martha who is the patroness of cooks and housewives. Martha, along with her siblings Lazarus and Mary, was one of Jesus's closest friends. He spent a great deal of time with this family in Bethany.

I think Martha often gets a bad rap because we most remember the encounter with Christ in which she is chastised for being too occupied with hospitality.

As they continued their journey he entered a village 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.” (Luke 10:38-42)

I don't believe that Christ is telling Martha that service is bad, but instead he is telling her that the contemplative life is better. Nevertheless, the two sisters represent "the two dimensions of the spiritual life." (Ignatius Study Bible). Martha represents the active life of Christian service, while Mary signifies the life of contemplation, of prayer. We would all do well to have a balance spiritual life of both contemplation and service.

I would like to add that Martha redeems her image in a later story in the Bible. When her brother Lazarus has died, she is out waiting for Jesus to return to Bethany. John describes the encounter this way:

When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. [But] even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise.” Martha said to him, “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.” (John 11:20-27)

By this we can see that Martha was indeed a woman of great faith. Apparently she was no push over either as she is often portrayed as having slain a dragon. For more on this legend, you should read Dr. Taylor Marshall's take on it.

Finally, I want to take this opportunity to remind you of a family tradition we started a few years back. We celebrate Baptism Days and we celebrate Patron Saint Days. We don't do anything too extravagant, but today I took Stacey out to lunch after Mass and then out for some gelatin at Paciugo. I recommend you do the same in your family. It's a nice way to bring attention to the liturgy and to have an excuse to celebrate.

By the way, if you didn't get it, the title is a play on the Brady Bunch episode: