Are you a Martha or a Mary?

This article really spoke to me so I wanted to share it.

by Fr. Thomas Euteneuer
President of Human Life International

Once in a parish Eucharistic Holy Hour the deacon noticed that two candles on the candelabra had gone out. He dutifully went up to the altar and fumbled with their brass tops trying to get them lit again. He was unsuccessful so he went back to the sacristy to get something to trim the wax around the wicks. Then he forgot the lighter to light them again and in the meantime decided that the altar had a few smudges on it that needed to be cleaned off which he took care of on his third trip back to the sacristy. So for twenty minutes of the holy hour not only did he not pay attention to the Eucharistic Lord in front of him, but the rest of us in church had to watch this distraction whittle away our prayerful spirits. That is what happens when Martha takes over the sacristy!

Most people, myself included, are like this when it comes to the truly important things. The deacon got so caught up with something that needed to be fixed that he lost sight of the thing in himself that needed to be transformed—his sense of priorities and focus. He didn’t have to fix the candelabra right then and there, and none of us cared anyway! The Martha Syndrome, as I like to call it, is not just about the distinction between active and contemplative lives. Few of us are called to the contemplative life so that story is hardly a message for humanity. What we are all called to, however, is the discipline of assuring that the truly important things in life are never surrendered to the tyranny of the immediate, urgent things of life. Mary is a model for us because she had her priorities in order, not just externally, but internally. She could set aside her preoccupations with mundane matters in order to absorb the “one thing that mattered.”

I suspect that even if Martha had sat down there in front of the Lord she would not have gotten much out of His visit because her internal life was so scattered. She was preoccupied with the wrong things at the wrong time, and even if she had been physically still, her mind would have been racing to a million things at once. She let the urgent distract her from the necessary. This is the perennial challenge of the Christian in a busy world. We must be busily about the Lord’s work as His helpers, but not obsessively. That is a pagan trait. Christians exercise judgment about the things of the world always relating them to God’s Will and their own vocations. Everyone, contemplative or active, religious or lay, must develop that judgment about putting the right things at the right times in order to grow in Christ. There are some things that just cannot be surrendered to the inevitable daily urgencies.

Prayer and spiritual development are two of those necessary but nonurgent things. Life will not give you time for them—you must make the time for them and do it on a regular basis. Necessary but non-urgent things cannot be fruitful for our lives if we try to carve out big chunks of time for them, time which we don’t have anyway. We have to savor their graces in little daily bites such as Mass attendance, private prayer and spiritual reading. Our spirits cannot be developed in a crash course, nor can such virtues be inculcated in children (or husbands!) by giving seminars. Only daily discipline over the long haul will do it. If we neglect developing virtue for our souls we will be subject to Martha’s vices and the Lord’s disappointment that we have somehow squandered the treasure He lays before us. Like a good novel, the necessary but non-urgent things have to be returned to, faithfully and regularly, in order to give maximum benefit to our souls.

Martha’s discipline was that of a manager—she was always vigilant about the small picture. Mary’s discipline was that of a leader—she knew how to do the right things at the right times, the big picture so to speak, and she had the discipline to never lose sight of it. Perhaps she developed it by daily visits to Jesus teaching in the Temple or by regularly seeking out the apostles’ advice on what Jesus would do in any given circumstance.

Whatever the source of her virtue, she teaches us that our necessary relationship with Jesus must be a constant focus and must never be surrendered to the tyranny of the immediate.

reprinted from the Seton Home Study School February 2007 newsletter