"He 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.'"(Luke 10:38-42)
In the mid-1960s I was assigned to our novitiate in Santa Barbara, which had opened just a few years earlier. At that time, our community - 4 priests, 3 brothers, and 23 novices - lived in a sprawling ranch-style house, while a larger novitiate complex was being constructed on another part of the property. The house in which we lived was large, but our community of 30 stretched it beyond all imagining: we were packed in like sardines, but we were a wonderfully happy community. I was there only three months, however, when our lay cook was incapacitated by a serious stroke. So for the next year and a half another brother and I did all the cooking - three-meals-a day, seven days-a week - for the community. It was demanding and tiring work, but I loved it, mostly because I loved doing it for people I loved.
During that time we often spoke with happy anticipation of the new and larger novitiate that was being built, commenting about how much more comfortable - and happier - we would be. In January 1968 the new novitiate was completed and we moved. It was indeed larger and more comfortable, but it was also, unlike the house we had just vacated, terribly institutional. It seemed that the magic was gone. On occasion I still did some cooking, but it was no longer with the same joy that I had experienced in the old house. For me, cooking had become a burden.
Something similar seems to have happened in the story of Martha and Mary. Martha and Mary seem to have been close friends with Jesus and probably entertained him on more than a few occasions - though this is the only occasion that is described in the gospels. On this occasion, we are told that after Martha welcomed Jesus, her sister Mary plopped down at Jesus' feet to listen to him, while she busied herself in the kitchen. Both sisters were expressing their love, though the manner in which they did so differed. I suspect that both initially delighted in their self-appointed tasks: Mary listening to Jesus and Martha preparing a meal for Jesus - but then something happened. Gradually Martha became caught up in all her work, and the delight that she had initially felt in it began to wane. Her focus was no longer on Jesus, but rather on her busyness "with much serving." Her labor of love had become for her a burden.
I suspect that our everyday lives are spent doing tasks that can often seem small and insignificant in the eyes of those who don't know what we are about. But it is important that we never forget the enormous value of the often inconspicuous things we do for others. Mother Teresa seems to capture the sense of all this when she reminds us that it is not what we do that ultimately matters, but rather the love we put into doing it.
Written by Br. Charlie Jackson, S.J., LIS Associate Director
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