The older I get, the more I meet people, the more convinced I am that we must only work on ourselves, to grow in grace. The only thing we can do about people is to love them. Dorothy Day (A good "bottom line,"
straight from the heart of the Gospel.) |
GAL 1:13-24; PS 139:1B-3, 13-14AB, 14C-15 LK 10:38-42 Jesus 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.” Reflection on the Scriptures
Whenever I read today's Gospel, where Martha is doing all the work and Mary is
relaxed and seemingly unconcerned, I see myself taking Martha's side. This might be because I am first-born, and by default, I was responsible for many house chores growing up. When I visualize myself in the Gospel scene, I am always the one working and never the one resting at the feet of Jesus. Being like Martha, I remember feeling the same way about my sisters when doing chores at home as a teenager.
However, despite Jesus' comments, I don't think he was disregarding Martha’s efforts and work. I don’t think Jesus was trying to say serving and doing the necessary work wasn’t important. I think Jesus wanted Martha to feel free to rest close to him and be cared for. I think Jesus wanted Martha to know that there is a time for everything, and right now, stopping for a while, resting, and taking time to listen and be
nourished by his words, would be the better thing to do at that moment. It is easy to find ourselves running around, hustling to get everything done and to try to solve everyone's problems. However, what would it be like to stop worrying about everything, even for a day? Would it be possible for us to do so? What would it be like to be tended to by the Lord? What would it be like to rest at the feet of the Lord and listen? Would we have the courage to put aside everything, including the to-do
lists, to let go, and rest? Would we have the courage and inner spaciousness to hear what Jesus has to say without needing to be busy doing something else instead? We have no need to be anxious about our lives. We have no need to worry about tending to everything all at once. Everything will be done in its own time and all we need to do at the moment is allow the Lord to care for us; we, children of God, who are all precious and special in God’s eyes.
- Vivian Amu Check out this podcast for a whole different take on this
reading.
The Existence of God by Francois Fenelon SECTION XXIX.
On food What is more noble than a machine which continually repairs and renews itself? The animal, stinted to his own strength, is soon tired and exhausted by labour; but the more he takes pains, the more he finds himself pressed to make himself
amends for his labour, by more plentiful feeding. Aliments daily restore the strength he had lost. He puts into his body another substance that becomes his own, by a kind of metamorphosis. At first it is pounded, and being changed into a liquor, it purifies, as if it were strained through a sieve, in order to separate anything that is gross from it; afterwards it arrives at the centre, or focus of the spirits, where it is subtilised, and becomes blood. And running at last, and
penetrating through numberless vessels to moisten all the members, it filtrates in the flesh, and becomes itself flesh. So many aliments, and liquors of various colours, are then no more than one and the same flesh; and food which was but an inanimate body preserves the life of the animal, and becomes part of the animal himself; the other parts of which he was composed being exhaled by an insensible and continual transpiration. The matter which, for instance, was four years ago such
a horse, is now but air, or dung. What was then either hay, or oats, is become that same horse, so fiery and vigorous--at least, he is accounted the same horse, notwithstanding this insensible change of his substance.
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