Oblates of St. Francis de Sales

New DeSales World Newsletter - Summer Edition

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time (July 18, 2004)

Suggested Emphasis

The story of Martha and Mary

Salesian Perspective

We are all-too familiar with this image from the Gospel according to Luke. All-too familiar because it is all-too-easy to see in this Gospel a putdown of action and activity as compared with prayer and contemplation.

We need to revisit this interpretation. We need to understand how this Gospel speaks about Martha and Mary. More importantly, we need to consider how this Gospel speaks to us.

Jesus does not criticize Martha for being busy about the details of hospitality. Rather, Jesus criticizes the fact that Martha is allowing her activity to make her anxious. Likewise, Mary is not exalted due to her inactivity, but rather because she is not burdened with anxiety. In short, Martha is upset and flustered, while Mary is calm and centered.

Both Martha and Mary bring something to the experience of hospitality. In Martha, we see the importance of tending to details when welcoming people into our homes. In Mary, we see the importance of welcoming people into our lives, into our hearts, into the core of who we are.

Hospitality isn't a matter of choosing between activity and availability. It is a matter of incorporating - of integrating - both.

Francis de Sales certainly knew this when he described the two great faces of love: the love of complacence, and the love of benevolence. Complacence is love that delights in simply being in the presence of the beloved; benevolence is love that delights in expressing this complacence by doing for the beloved.

Doing and being. Being and doing. This is the dance of hospitality. This is the dance of love.

In order to be truly open, to be truly welcoming, to be truly hospitable, there needs to be something of Martha and Mary in all of us. We need to be equally at peace with the details of doing and the demands of being.

How are we doing in our attempts to do - and be - both?

Michael S. Murray, OSFS, is Executive Director of the De Sales Spirituality Center at Childs, MD