Year A
Galatians 1:13-24
Psalm 139:1-3.13-14.15 (R. 24b)
Luke 10:38-42
The Active word in Us
Regarding today's gospel reading, the Apostolic Fathers mostly attribute contemplative life and active life in spirituality to the personalities of Mary and Martha. Accordingly, Mary represents the contemplative life and Martha the active life.
Basically, the contemplative and the active are the two lungs of spirituality. But for today's reflection, let's concentrate on the personality of Mary.
There are a lot of controversies going on regarding Mary's character in today's gospel. The first is about her gender and what was expected of her as a female. She was not expected to mingle with men because she will make them unclean. Menstruation according to that era makes women unclean and since one may not know when it will come, women are not to socialize with men so as to make them unclean.
Still on the case of uncleanness, women were not to be given close contact with the Torah or Holy Book, since they are mostly unclean. So they were not to sit under the feet of a teacher to learn. In short women are relegated to the background to do works of service as Martha was doing.
Now Mary's controversy is that she is going against Tradition and she is socializing with men and is learning from Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ also supports the behavior of Mary.
However the interesting point is that where Mary is sitting and learning from Jesus makes her an Apostle and not a mere disciple. The position she was sitting is that of a Chief disciple or an Apostle. And what she was doing is that she was listening to Jesus Christ.
In most pictures about this gospel you will find that Mary's position is at the right side of the feet of Jesus Christ. Perhaps this has something to tell us about Jesus Christ himself. Even if we do not reflect on the pictures, the fact that Jesus Christ is an Apostle is in Scriptures.
Hebrews 3:1
"Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest."
In fact Revelation 1 also makes this clear;
Revelation 1:1
"The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to make known to his servants the things which must shortly come to pass: and signified, sending by his angel to his servant John, "
Like Mary who sits at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ, to listen to him, Jesus Christ as the Word of God also listen to his Father whom he sits at his right hand (cf. 1 Peter 3:23).
The action of Mary at the feet of Jesus Christ is one worthy of emulation. She Listens. Now there is a difference between hearing and listening. Hearing is just to receive into the ears the sound of a voice that is coming, but listening includes acting out what you have heard.
But how can someone who has sat silently be performing an action? Unless the action been performed is not the person but the word the person is listening to. So whatever Mary was hearing was working deeply within her, breaking all barriers of segregation.
This is precisely because the Word of God as a double edged sword enforces a different separation (cf. Hebrews 4:12), which in turn renew our whole being [Body, Soul and Spirit]. Thus Mary was listening because she was allowing the Word to have an effect on her life. This is why the what she chose was the better part.
We must learn to sit at the feet of the Word of God and allow the Word of God to work within us, break every bandages and barriers and transform our lives. This is why contemplative life is a life of continuous Prayer. Always ruminating on the Word and allowing the Word to transform you from your innermost being where the highest part of man (the spirit) is, through to your soul and body.
The only way Scriptures can transform us is when the Word of God break us like how he broke his body for us. He who is the Word of God in breaking his body for us teaches us that we must allow God's Word to also break us.
You imagine a bread with impurities or dirt in it, the only way to make it wholesome to eat is to break every part of it to remove the impurities. Mary as a woman was indeed unclean, but we all are unclean and need God's word to break us and remove all the impurities in us.
When the whole of humanity was unclean, God came to take an uncorrupted body from the woman conceived Immaculately know as Mary, who this month is her month. Tomorrow we will celebrate a memorial in her honor as Our Lady of the Rosary. When God took such an uncorrupted body which he already because of his Salvation plan deemed fit to do, he futher showed that unless we are broken and all impurities removed, we cannot be clean.
So Paul in today's first reading tell us that after his encounter with the resurrected Jesus Christ, he did not go to Jerusalem but to Arabia for three years. Arabia means night or darkness, and so Paul say he needed the darkness of faith to understand all the revelation he had from Jesus. It was after that he went to the City of Peace (Jerusalem).
For the Word of God to transform us, we need the darkness of faith to listen, so that the Word will act in us. Speaking about been broken and Paul to about going to the desert of Arabia, the priestly theme is seen here. The Priesthood is one of the Institution of the Israelites that began in the desert. However is also clear that God has make us all priests.
1 Peter 2: 5
" and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."
This is why as priests our sacrifice we are to offer is to allow ourselves to be broken by the Word of God. Notice here that we are not talking about the Ministerial Priesthood where we have the Deacons, Priests and Bishops but what we call Common Priesthood, which we all share when we are incorporated into Christ at Baptism.
CCC 1241
"The anointing with sacred chrism, perfumed oil consecrated by the bishop, signifies the gift of the Holy Spirit to the newly baptized, who has become a Christian, that is, one "anointed" by the Holy Spirit, incorporated into Christ who is anointed priest, prophet, and king."
So in Baptism we are part of what is termed as common Priesthood. Through the darkness of faith, let us sit at the feet of the Word of God and listen, and allow the Word of God to break and transform us.
By Sylvester Amakye-Quayson
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