by Fr. Martin Mary Fonte, FI

Active service to our neighbor and contemplation of God always suffer opposition for many. This apparent division between active and interior life is spiced by the episode of the Gospel today: Martha and Mary. One woman named Martha came to me, after preaching about this Gospel exclaimed: I think it is unfair that God considered Mary doing the better part when active service is so much of a work on the part of Martha.

St. Thomas addressed this discrepancy in his treatise on the forms of religious life. He compared Martha to those who are engaged in the active apostolate while Mary is the predecessor of the contemplatives. He said, that Our Lord never debased the work of active service with all its worth. For Thomas, the value of things is defined by the end of things. He called this, final cause. The more one is oriented directly to the final cause, that is God, the more noble that life is. Hence contemplative (Mary) is superior from active life.

On the other hand, one should not be hasty to misinterpret our Lord’s words to Martha. It is not because of her work for Him that our Lord corrects but rather her anxiety in doing the work. There is always a temptation for one who actively work to have a sense of control of things and when face with his or her limitation, anxieties and complains creep in. Wether it is active or contemplative our Lord expects an attitude of total dependence on Him on the part of His creatures. This dependence constitutes one of the essential attitudes of religion, the worship of God.

In the first reading today, Abraham, when visited by the three angels (Tradition interpreted this as the Trinity), offered everything he has received from God. The act of worship is an acknowledgment of God’s supremacy and His primacy in our lives. This is the reason why deliberate failure to fulfill one’s Sunday obligation is considered a mortal sin-- it is a lack of recognition of God’s primacy in our lives--a recognition that reveals one’s total dependence on God. Worship, therefore, entails some sacrifice, a “breaking-up” or “burning up of something.” But as Pope Benedict XVI wrote that it is not the destruction of the offerings that constitute true worship but the spirit of total recognition of God’s dominion on them. Hence, contemplative life lived in separation from the world in order to completely dedicate oneself in God’s service assumed the highest level in the hierarchy of nobility. It is one thing to offer to God acts of religion; it is entirely different to offer oneself as “being of religion”; namely to offer one’s whole existence to God’s service.

But there is a vicarious dimension in this offering to God as if the offerer assumes the office of mediator in behalf of another. If in the Sacrifice of the Mass, Christ together with the Church makes intercession for us to the Father, so any act of religion has an intercessory character. This is what St. Paul said in the second reading today: “I complete in my flesh what is lacking in the suffering of Christ for the good of His Body, which is the Church. Paul’s suffering assumes a vicarious role of doing good for another. One’s suffering only becomes intercessory in character when united with Christ’s own sufferings. By doing in this way, one is fulfilling the central attitude necessary for the act of worship. The presence and absence of this attitude qualifies anything whether its better or not. HAVE YOU DONE A BETTER PART?

+ May God give you His peace.

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