Memorial of Saint Martha
Jeremiah 15:10.16-21
Psalm 59:2-3.4.10-11.17.18 (R. 17d)
John 11:19-27 or Luke 10:38-42
The God who Speaks and Acts.
One of my favorite quotes from the book of Robin S. Sharma titled "The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari" is,
"Alright, the secret of happiness is simple: find out what you truly love to do and then direct all your energy towards doing it."
But I wonder if it is a secret because we are talking about satisfying our hunger for happiness. In fact our whole being hungers for something. Our eyes hunger for sight, our ears for hearing, our noses for smelling, our souls for rest, and so on. Seeking to satisfy all these, we seek what will make us happy.
However, the problem is about the type of happiness we seek. Is it temporal happiness or eternal happiness? The temporal happiness is limited by time while the eternal happiness is beyond time. Light is beyond time and God's Word is the Light of the world. Thus this happiness is found only in God.
This is the reason why even in sufferings and persecutions, the Word of God was the joy and delight of Jeremiah. The Word of God gives us hope to endure our problems. He makes us aware that all suffering and all problems are transient, and he is Lord of all things and can help us solve our problems.
It is the Word of God we must truly love and direct all our energy towards. In fact it is he who satisfies the hunger of our whole being, and so John testified that;
1John 1:1-2
"Something which has existed since the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our own eyes, which we have watched and touched with our own hands, the Word of life -- this is our theme. That life was made visible; we saw it and are giving our testimony, declaring to you the eternal life, which was present to the Father and has been revealed to us."
Today, as we are celebrating the memorial of Martha, the Gospel according to Luke reminds us about the two lungs of the spiritual life which delight in the Word of God: the Active life represented by Martha, and the Contemplative life represented by her sister Mary.
While the contemplative sits at the feet of the Lord, the active put it into practice.
Just as knowledge and love go hand in hand, contemplative and active, which are the two lungs of the spiritual life, do too. We should never neglect either of them otherwise we will not be able to breath well. After sitting at the feet of the Lord, we must act out what we learn from God's Word which is active. It is he who has given us a mind to know him and a heart to love him, so that we can truly know what we love and love what we know, the Word of God, our double-edged sword to overcome any situation.
Our God Speaks, Our God acts.
For his will to be done on earth, we must listen to him, and act according to his Word.
By doing this with all our energy, we are conforming to his image and likeness, and he becomes our eternal happiness, the only one who deserves our worship.
By
Sylvester Amakye-Quayson
Edited by
Michael Owusu Amponsah
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