Following up on yesterday’s post in preparation for this Sunday’s Gospel. You can find the source here at ePriest.
Every day we are faced with the choice to be more like Martha or more like Mary.
This is one of the most amazing things about Christianity.
- God respects our freedom so much that, in a sense, he leaves our destiny in our own hands.
- We can freely choose our priorities in life.
- We can make our own achievements our highest priority, like Martha, or we can make knowing, loving, and imitating Christ our highest priority.
- Christ offers the benefits of following him to all people, but he leaves each person supremely free to accept or reject them.
And the offer is not a one-time affair.
- Martha chose to busy herself with her own plans on this occasion, but you can bet she adjusted her behavior thenext time.
- Mary chose to listen to the Lord this time, but he wouldn’t force her to do so again the next time.
- Every single time we choose to give Christ and his will priority in our lives, we allow his sanctifying, healing grace to seep deeper into our lives.
Perhaps today, we have all chosen to come and listen to the Lord.
- What will we choose tomorrow morning? Or the next day?
- Jesus is hoping that we will continue to choose this “better part“.
It isn’t hard.
- It’s a matter of spending ten minutes with him before getting distracted with the day’s activities.
- It could be ten minutes of reading and reflecting on a passage from the Bible or a paragraph from a book of Christian meditations.
- It could be praying a decade or two of the Rosary before we turn on the morning news show.
Jesus wants us to choose the better part, to depend more on him than ourselves, so that he can give us his best.
Today, let’s promise that we will.
Biltrix 
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In process: A Mary in a Martha body! 🙂
lol! 🙂 God bless you Lilly!
Yes, well said. It is important to take the time to remember that, even in our busy lives. How blessed the contemplatives are who can leave all behind, and truly be Mary – for most of the time. 🙂
True. The rest of us mortals here in this vale of tears have to find the happy balance, I suppose, and count on the contemplatives prayers for support.
Yes. 😦 *Sigh*
Ah well, it cannot be for all! A happy balance is what most of us must do, as you said. And their prayers are a great gift! *thumbs up* 🙂
Very interesting, James! This was almost the exact homily from this past weekend!
You aren’t providing “homily crib notes” for priests to make a little side-money, are you?
😉
😉
Thanks, JTR. Kind of. Long story, but the notes on this post were not mine. Your priest must be using ePriest.
Oh, you’re gonna have to explain that one to me.
Are you saying there’s an app for Homilies?
Really?
Well, it was only a matter of time, I suppose….
Okay… Short version of the long story. I was doing the content writing for “Gospel Connects” until “ePriest” bought it. Right now, I’m working on a temporary project for ePriest, with hopes of continuing, God willing.
GC and ePriest are essentially homily builders for priest (though ePriest offers a lot more). I like ePriest’s format a lot, because you can custom build your own homily — hard to explain w/o demonstrating on site. Incidentally, I used to run the primitive version of ePriest in the US in it’s original hard copy version once known as “Sacerdos” Magazine, back in the 90’s.
So that’s the scoop. And yes, there’s an app for homilies. Priest can also contribute to it with their own examples, applications, and lessons for building Sunday homilies. It’s a really good service, and it’s free.
Sorry I haven’t been by for a bit: it’s been a hectic month.
So, have you gotten your permanent gig with ePriest yet? It was a bit of a shock to read your post and think “I just heard this…”.
Figures that you’d have written it already.
And by the way, it made for a very solid homily!
😀
OK, now I have to go try to catch-up on what I’ve missed of yours for the past few weeks.
Hi JTR. Great to see you back! Still helping with ePriest, but nothing permanent yet.