Listen to him (Lk 9, 35)<\/i><\/p>\n
They accuse him of being a glutton and a drunkard, a friend besides of tax collectors and sinners.\u00a0 But Jesus keeps on valuing every person and having a predilection for the underdog.\u00a0 He honors the invitation of both the Pharisee Simon and the tax collector Matthew.<\/p>\n
And he is welcomed into the home of Martha and Mary.\u00a0 He thus gives importance to women who hardly count in a male-dominated society.\u00a0 Their sufferings also, along with those of all the people undervalued by the world, fill up what is lacking in Christ\u2019s afflictions.\u00a0 They too deserve to receive formation.\u00a0 To esteem them means to teach them with all wisdom and to instruct them affectionately in hurtful truth too.<\/p>\n
Through an admonition, though tender, given the vocative, \u201cMartha, Martha,\u201d Jesus makes clear, as on other occasions, what he cares about above all.\u00a0 He asserts that there is only one thing necessary, which spells genuine intimacy with him.\u00a0 It is the better part that Mary has chosen:\u00a0 sitting beside the Lord at his feet, she listens to him speak.\u00a0 Martha, on the other hand, is anxious and worried.<\/p>\n
No doubt, there is room in our communities for the Marthas and the Marys.\u00a0 The Church recognizes it when she prays:\u00a0 \u201cLord Jesus, master, Mary listened to your words while Martha served your needs, help us to serve you with love and devotion\u201d (Intercessions, Morning Prayer, the Common of Holy Women, Liturgy of the Hours).\u00a0 For his part, St. Vincent de Paul says that good missionaries are those who unite the office of Martha with that of Mary by uniting contemplation with action (Coste XI, 40-41).\u00a0 But if the saint urges us to love God with the strength of our arms and the sweat of our brows, he also speaks of Martha\u2019s less than discreet zeal (Coste II, 71).<\/p>\n
As St. Vincent sees her, Martha murmurs against the \u201choly idleness and the holy sensuality\u201d of her sister Mary, looking upon her as doing wrong for not being as worked up as she is.\u00a0 But what a great surprise from God\u2019s wisdom and knowledge\u2014the saint continues\u2014for this idleness and this sensuality turn out to be preferable.\u00a0 This is the same kind of surprise, I think, that results when a son who has answered his father, \u201cI will not,\u201d changes his mind later and fulfills the father\u2019s command.<\/p>\n
We are in for an unpleasant surprise, those of us who are today\u2019s Pharisees, chief priests and elders of the people, those of us who behave like the elder son who refuses to celebrate the return of his prodigal brother.\u00a0 We who presume too much of our way of serving and living, in compliance with the minute details of ecclesiastical regulations, as the only one that counts, so that we question those who differ from us, will be admonished:\u00a0 \u201cAmen, I say to you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you.\u201d<\/p>\n
And it is not altogether impossible that we who feel secure and justified, with all of our multiplied prayers and liturgies, are rebuked to our face that these are loathsome or that, when we meet for Mass, we end up not celebrating the Lord\u2019s Supper, due to our neglect of justice and sharing.\u00a0 It is not impossible either that the people we disregard, taking them as something like a mirage that is brought about by the day\u2019s heat, are the messengers of the God who is never outdone in generosity.<\/p>\n
Do we see them now single, now double?\u00a0 Incomprehensible presence of the divine mystery in the underestimated!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"