A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. Glory to you, Lord. Jesus entered a village where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. Martha had a sister named Mary who seated herself at the lord's feet and listened to his every word. Martha, who was busy with all the details of hospitality, came over to Jesus and said to him, lord, are you not concerned that my sister has left everything to me to do alone?
Tell her to help me with the household tasks. The Lord in reply said to Martha, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and upset about many things. One thing only is required. Mary has chosen the better part, and she shall not be deprived of it. And this is the gospel of the lord.
Praise be to Jesus. The name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. One of the great problems of being a Christian is to decide whether we're a Martha or a Mary or something in between or something on the outside. It's a big problem.
Chris to be a good follower of Jesus Christ is a constitutes a road strewn with problems. Everything you see is a problem. Because everything that comes into our lives that we have any choice about, it is a problem. Because it's up to me to decide me to decide in my own life on which side I will be. Am I going to join Christ in his kingdom, which is not of this world, or am I going to join the world which is not of Christ's kingdom?
And he said that. I didn't make it up. So that the problem of being a Christian is the very fact of being a Christian. That every so many things, if not everything, which comes into my life, I have a choice about it. Or I don't have a choice.
In other words, I've renounced choosing. So there's nothing to be affrighted at or to be afraid or to hesitate or to be repelled by the fact that to be a Christian means you have a problem. To be alive means you have a problem. When you're dead, I don't know what your problems will be. We'll wait and see.
You can tell me, and I'll tell you. Now today, we have these two very endearing sisters, Martha and Mary, And our blessed lord is their guest. And you can just imagine on a hot afternoon with an open fire where Martha is trying to be the the proper hostess, where she's concerned to have everything just right in spite of the heat, in spite of all the anxieties of getting things overdone or underdone, and all of the commotion of getting things ready for this big meal. And here she is in a flurry of excitement, concern to have everything proper for her guest whom she wants to honor in every way. And here's her darling sister sitting at Christ's feet, probably fanning herself with a willow will whisper something.
And that gets on the on the lady's nerves. And it she becomes so irritated at her indolent sister that she speaks to Christ and says, look. Tell that gal to get over here and give me a hand. Can't you see I'm just up to here in it, and I've had enough of it. Tell her to come over here and help me.
You know, getting a meal together in the day of Jesus Christ was no small matter. And our blessed lord says to her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and upset about many things. Only one thing is required, and Mary has chosen it. Well, this is here again, you know, this is a real problem. Because on the other hand, you have our blessed lord telling us.
You're do you recall that opening prayer? I'll bet you that's a very modern prayer. I'll be putting my money on it. It says, you know, that we should seek to serve God by serving our neighbor. Well, how does that fit in with Mary sitting at Christ's foot feet?
She wasn't serving anybody. She wasn't even concerned about her guests. She wasn't even concerned about the proper household and the and the responsibilities and the obligation of of certain attitudes towards a guest, especially an honored guest. Remember, the the the the obligations of being a proper host or hostess were much more severe then than now. Even if your enemy came into your house to break bread, you had to have you had to treat him properly.
You might murder him when he left the house, but you couldn't do it indoors. So and here we have this scene, and here we have the big choice. How do we go about it? We're in this world, but Christ says you can't be of it. My kingdom is not of this world.
Follow me. Take up your cross and so on. I mean, we can't get out of this. And here's Martha trying to do her level best with all the with everything she has at her disposal to make Christ, the honored guest, feel at home, to give him the honor that is his due. And here's her sister doing nothing except sitting at his feet, listening to him.
She's not even entertaining him. She's on the receiving side. Now there you have it. There you have it. In France, when they decided that they didn't want religion anymore and threw out the religious orders, they threw out all the religious orders of men or women except those that they said had social value, such as running hospitals and mental institutions and so forth.
In Mexico, when they decided to get rid of religion and threw all the religious out, except those who had a social value. And let me tell you, you don't have to go far to find good and I mean this. I'm not being cynical. Good Catholics who say, what's the use of a contemplative order? What what good are they to society?
See, this was the big contrast between the Benedictines in the thirteenth century and the twelfth century and the so called Mendigan orders. There's one of the big differences. The Benedictines withdrew from the cities, had their own farms, earned their own living, had their own little household, which in many instances was self contained, and in some instances magnificently self sufficient. So you have a Dominic or Saint Francis coming along in the twelfth century and saying, we don't want any of that. We're gonna be right in the marketplace.
We're gonna devote our lives entirely to the service of Christ. We're going to be beggars for Christ, mendicants. We'll serve Christ through his people, through his through through the those who need us, either in the way of helping them physically or helping them spiritually. We'll bring the message of God right down into the marketplace, right down to the forum. We won't withdraw from the world.
We'll be in it. We'll be mixed up with it, and we'll live on what the faithful are willing to give us. We will be beggars for Christ. And Saint Francis wouldn't allow his his followers to own even a breviary. That was Saint Francis.
That changed quickly, of course. So here you have this great contrast. Here you have those who withdraw to worship God in contemplation, as we use the word, and those who are busy with many things serving Christ. It's the way it is. Well, the point is this, there's room for everybody.
We don't have to make an exclusive choice. With my own life, of course I do. I can't be can't be all things to all men. Only Saint Paul could say that. And he didn't try being a Benedictine and a Franciscan at the same time.
Even Paul didn't try that. So what does it come down to? It comes down to our blessed Lord that that Mary had chosen the better part. Now notice, he didn't he didn't condemn Martha. But you can see this.
You take a mother and a father. That means that they have they have they have a child. And they they know that this child has been confided to them by god. It's I I some parents have this idea anyway, good parents, and many and many parents are good parents, and that this is a responsibility they have to give the child, to bring that child up the best they can or children. And so they do.
But you see, it's very easy to lose yourself in the in the process. It's very easy to forget what you're doing. Very easy. I recall a priest who got mixed up in the sixties with doing all this good to the poor, and he gave up some of the things that he was supposed to be doing and went out to serve the poor. There's nothing wrong in serving the poor, but you see your first duty is to serve God.
And he said that one day he was walking down through his slum area, and quite suddenly, the thought struck him. What am I doing that a pagan or an atheist wouldn't be doing? He came to a halt. Now that doesn't mean he shouldn't be doing what he was doing, that he shouldn't be helping the poor. But you see, it's very easy to forget god in helping the poor.
It's very easy to forget God in trying to be a good parent. It's very easy to forget God in trying to make a decent living for your family or for yourself. It's very easy to forget God in having liturgical worship. It's very easy to forget God in having beautiful music in the church or beautiful ceremonies. Somebody said religion is the worst enemy of God.
And then you know there's a there's more than a modicum of truth in it. It's very easy to turn the church into an opera hall, or into a theater. Some people would like to have dancing, you see. A little ballet now and so now and then during mass. It's very easy to be a Martha and be a Martha in the sense that you forget Jesus Christ in your pots and pans in getting the lamb done just to a turn.
It's very easy, and that's the problem. That is the problem. To keep God first, to love yourself, and then to love your neighbor as you love yourself. There's the problem to hold all of this together. And yet to be a follower of Jesus Christ is to hold it all together.
You have got to be an inner tube without a puncture, without the tiniest hole. And so in this matter of being a Martha and Mary, actually, we've got to be both. We have to be both. We have to know how to serve god in this world, and we have to know how to sit as at his feet and listen. The name of the father, and the son, and the holy spirit.
Amen.