By Father Leonidas Contos
We would agree, I think, that to identify the “one thing” is not difficult for the Christian. To define it, however, is rather less easy. And to achieve that set of the soul that keeps us in steady pursuit of it is not easy at all. To say so is to mock the whole meaning of spiritual discipline and to devalue the lives of those few in each generation who are our examples and our inspiration. Mary, from Jesus’ witness, was on the right course. Martha, also from Jesus’ witness, in her racing about, her anxiety to set a fine table, to please, to be a success, was missing the point. And as her friend and Lord, who Himself lived an often crowded but never frenzied life, Jesus was trying to exorcize from her life that terrifying trinity—worry, flurry and hurry.
I am not even sure what is the best way for us to begin to simplify; for each of us it will mean different things. But there can be no doubt that the process of simplification is more a matter of adjusting attitudes rather than actions. As important as it can be to alter the pattern and tempo of our lives, there is no magic in the magic formula “relax.” Except as we learn to do so in the meaning of St. Peter when he writes: “Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you” (I Peter 5:7 RSV).
Once we have become accustomed to the repeatable miracle of casting our little anxieties on God and finding, not that they are miraculously removed or attended to for us, but that we are given strength to deal with them, we begin to comprehend a little what the “needful” thing is. Then the “fretting and fussing” begins to strike us as a little foolish. The “many things” do not suddenly cease to be important; but they do suddenly cease to be as important as we had thought them to be. In the perspective of confident, believing persons, they assume their proper dimensions.
Elsewhere we agreed that to label Mary the spiritual type and Martha the practical would be to overdraw the picture. To say that there must be no Marthas in the world but only Marys is equally absurd. All society, even religious societies, requires a balance between the active and the contemplative, the doers and the thinkers, the artisans and the artists. Four centuries ago St. Theresa of Avila said, “To give our Lord perfect service, Mary and Martha must combine. The Lord, when you are busy in the kitchen, is beside you; he walks among the pots and pans.” In other words we need to be able to balance our lives between our practical obligations and our spiritual longings, attending conscientiously and responsibly to the business of living, yet never forgetting that we must be “about our Father’s business.” The perfect Christian life is thus a perfect blend of the two, placed in perfect surrender into the hands of God. Let us pray.
Lord, from thy kindly rebuke of Martha, grant that we may learn the unimportance of trifles and the importance of the more lasting things. In the clutter and clatter and speed of our lives, help us to preserve the judgment of quieter times so as to know the difference. Teach us to pause now and then in our pursuit of the nonessential and be replenished at thy feet with the knowledge, and confirmed in our trust, that thou carest for us, and that we can cast all our anxieties upon thee, our loving Lord. Amen
CHURCH OF ST. PETER MANCROFT
NORWICH, NORFOLK, ENGLAND, August 2, 1959
~Adapted from Leonidas Contos, In Season and Out of Season: A Collection of Sermons by Father Leonidas Contos
