The Gospel of the Day – 2016.07.17
Sisters
Jesus came to a village,
and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. She had a sister called
Mary, who sat down at the Lord’s feet and listened to him speaking. Now Martha
who was distracted with all the serving said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my
sister is leaving me to do the serving all by myself? Please tell her to help
me.’ But the Lord answered: ‘Martha, Martha,’ he said ‘you worry and fret 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.’
(NJB)
Priorities
We all have work to do.
For those of us who live with our families, or near them, or if we have friends
who are a close to us as any family’ we have shared responsibilities. There is
work to do every day; in maintaining a business, or a household. There is
cooking, there is cleaning, there are chores that never end.
In the midst of all that
work there is who we are; as individuals, with individual needs. Those personal
needs have many facets, there are material needs, there are emotional needs,
there are intellectual needs, and there are spiritual needs. Even those needs
that are unique to us as individuals, there are few of them that we can meet on
our own.
Most of us are good at
meeting our material needs; food, clothing, shelter, those things are dialed in
(for most of us). Our intellectual needs can be met in conversation, or through
reading a book. Meeting our emotional needs can be a little more difficult,
because it requires that we have other people around us whom we trust, and
relate to.
The most difficult resource
to find is that of a genuine spiritual teacher. Our spiritual life has direct
links to the other modes of our life. Which is to say that we can find some
spiritual satisfaction in a good meal, a good conversation, or a deep emotional
connection.
Those things can also be
exploited; overdone, so as to inure us to our actual spiritual state.
When the true spiritual
teacher is present to us, that is time for us to take; for ourselves, for our
understanding, for our illumination.
It requires mindfulness,
and perception to recognize this. It requires will and determination to act on
it.
16th
Sunday in Ordinary Time
