we will have chosen the better part and it will not be taken from us.

Luke 10; 38-42 Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. July 18, 2010

We have been speaking about our need to have an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ in order to bring the Good News into our world. Today, we read a seemly very different kind of Gospel, but one that has the same message for us—We need to have this deeper intimate relationship with Christ before we can live and spread the Good News, and so we need to put making time for this relationship primary in our lives, at the top of our list of priorities.

Today, we see Jesus at the home of Lazarus, where his two sisters are doing different things. It would seem a very familiar scene in any household- one person is stuck doing all of the work, while others do nothing. And so it would appear that it is Martha who is actively doing all of the work, while Mary seemingly sits passively at the feet of Jesus.

Martha and Mary have openly received Jesus into their home, and He for His part, would never forget their hospitality toward Him. Later, He would reward them by raising their brother from the dead; We always have to remember that Jesus can never be outdone in generosity; He loves those who love Him.

Martha does what is customary; she is so absorbed in making sure everything is perfect- actively attending to so many details- is there enough bread? Have we prepared enough meat? (On and on). Mary, on the other hand, it would seem, sits passively at the master’s feet to listen. However, Mary’s is the position of the servant-a position of humility. She sits at the feet of THE MASTER- Christ and is absorbed with His words as she stares into His face. She is not helping Martha with all the chores. Now, out of fairness, we might think that Jesus should say to her- “please help your sister- she is anxious and worried about so many things;” but he does not. Jesus instead says, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about so many things and yet few are needed, indeed only one. It is Mary who has chosen the better part; it is not to be taken from her.”

After we recover from our natural shock, we have to consider what all of this means. For the Fathers of the Church this passage has been seen as showing the two aspects of Christian life-prayer and service. Mary representing prayer and Martha-service. Now often, these two aspects are seen in opposition to one another, however, nothing can be further from the case.

Every Christian, even the most recluse hermit, even the pope, must live these two aspects of the Christian life- prayer and service; both are needed to authentically follow the Master. Most of us understand the need for service, but the prayer aspect is often put in second place or even overlooked, when it is really that which is most primary, most important. In fact, by giving primacy to prayer we can make our service a prayer, make our work a prayer. In other words, if we give prayer the first place in our lives, this practice of being in God's present will overflow into our daily lives of service, we can do our work, our leisure, everything with the profound sense that we are in the presence of God. This will bear much fruit in our lives by leading others to the presence of God as well.

The reality is, is that we all have such busy lives, such packed calendars. And so, it is very easy to allow this busyness to distract us and prevent us from the one thing that really matters--our time for daily prayer, our time for daily and intimate conversion with our God--being with God.

But if our work is going to bear fruit that will last we can't forget to pray and to make pray the most important activity of our lives. We have to be careful we don't just get in the mode of doing and not being, being busy, busy, busy and forget that God is always with us; we have to be with Him as well.

There is another element to this that we need to look at. Even when we do make time for prayer if we are not careful we can bring the busyness of our lives into our prayer time. What do I mean? Because our lives are so busy and we only have so much time, we think we have to be a Martha and actively accomplish something in the short time we have.

And so, when we only have so much time to pray we can then think that it has to be an active time, time in which we achieve much. Our understanding of prayer then can take on only the dimension of Martha and not of Mary. In other words we see prayer only as way of doing many things, not as a way of being.

In our prayer we can become like Martha anxious about many things, saying many words, saying many prayers, when only one thing is necessary to like Mary, sit at the feet of Jesus and listen in silence to Him speak to our hearts and in faith contemplate His face. This type of prayer, known as Contemplative prayer is the most active way we can pray; it is listening to God in the silence of our hearts and contemplating His face.

Again I think because of the busyness of our lives and the resulting having to have to accomplish something all the time, our time is measured by success, this type of prayer, is unknown or devalued by many. Sadly it is consider by many who do know about it as being merely passive, doing nothing, accomplishing nothing. The fact of the matter is, Contemplative prayer is far from being passive and accomplishing nothing, it really that which is most primary, the most active thing we can do in our lives. Time with our Lord is the most loving and indeed most effective and active way of living the Christian life; it is far from sitting before Jesus doing nothing—being with our beloved is never doing nothing; it is accomplishing the most important work of all.

This undervaluing of Contemplative prayer can also occur at our Prayer at Holy Mass as well. We can understand our participation at Mass only as matter of doing many things and not of being; as doing something, like saying the responses, singing, reading, taking up the gifts, or helping to distribute Holy Communion. All of these things may be necessary in our service at the Mass, but they are not the best part; only one thing is really needed and that is for us to be like Mary, to sit at the feet of Jesus and silently listen to His words and contemplate in faith, His Face in the Holy Eucharist.

I think there has been a great mistake in the last forty years since the Second Vatican II and that is to misunderstand what the Council meant when it called the faithful to a full and active participation in the Holy Mass. For many this was interpreted as filling up every moment in Mass with noise, making sure everyone was busy and accomplishing something by taking a so-called "active" part in the Holy Mass.

In this busyness it almost seems we left out the primacy of prayer at Holy Mass, especially that most active of prayer, silent contemplation. This interpretation failed to understand that most active part that the faithful can take is that of contemplating the face of Jesus, and his once and for sacrifice of love for us on Calvary; and then responding to this saving and redeeming act of His love by offering ourselves in return. What could be more active that. In fact, the Council said as much, when in the introduction to its Document on the Sacred Liturgy it said that Contemplation was the highest form of "Action";

Holy Mass allows us to literally sit at the feet of Jesus and contemplate His face in the Holy Eucharist either while the Mass is being offered or afterward during times of Eucharistic adoration; this is the better part. Let us choose this part, being careful not to bring the busyness of lives into our attitude of the Holy Mass. We can be "doing" at Mass many things, but not really be "present" at Mass, present to our God. Here we don't have to busy doing many things or accomplishing anything, all we have to do is to be present and open our hearts as God pours out His love anew on us in order that we can love Him in return and then go out and love our neighbor for love of Him.

Martha learned a valuable lesson from Jesus words in today's Gospel. She learned to balance service and prayer in her life. She gave sitting at the feet of Jesus the primacy in her life. By doing so, even her life of service became a life of prayer-she did everything realizing that God was always with her and she with Him. Jesus for her part blessed her with being the first to see Him and so be with Him after His resurrection. At this Holy Mass and every Mass let us imitate her, let us give contemplative prayer the primacy in our actions; Let us give sitting at the feet of Jesus and staring into His face in the Holy Eucharist, His resurrected body, the first place in our lives. By doing so Jesus will bless us, as He did Martha, with the power of His resurrection in our lives, we will begin already on earth to experience what the Angels and saints experience as they sit at His feet and contemplate the face of Jesus unveiled in all its glory in the eternal Mass of heaven. We will have chosen the better part and it will not be taken from us and we will be able to share what we experience, the very love of God, with all of those we meet in our daily lives.

Holy Mary, Mother of the contemplative life; help us to see the face of your Son in the Holy Eucharist and listen to His words so that we can become contemplatives in the street, bringing the love of God into our modern world....Amen..