Martha

I feel sorry for poor Martha, trying her best to have a meal ready for her special guest. She reminds me of my distracted mother when we had ‘the station’ Mass in our home as a child, fretting about the priest’s breakfast, the best china already set on the table. Martha welcomes Jesus into their home. Mary, as soon as Jesus comes in, sits down at his feet and seems to hang out dream eyed, lost on his every word.

But what is Martha to do? Sit down too, and let the spuds burn? Who is going to make the dinner? Then Jesus gets onto her, telling her that she frets and bothers about too many things and that Mary (of all people!) has chosen the better part by just lying there lazily, seemingly doing nothing. I would like to have been a fly on the wall to hear this imagined reply: “OK, you two make the dinner, set out the meal, and clean up the place afterwards. I’ve had it!. I’m tired of working and being unappreciated.” “You two do the work, if you think it is so unimportant.”
Perhaps she would even remind them who had invited Jesus in the first place. At least that is what I might have said, or maybe muttered angrily into the fire that no one else bothered to stoke. Didn’t he once say ‘by their fruits shall you know them’ –in other words actions speak louder than words or silence in this case.

Of course, my imagined response reveals why Jesus saw fit to chide the Martha in me. He spots the resentment that rises in all of us when we think others are not doing their share—especially when we feel we are so dutifully doing ours. ‘Poor me’, we brood with perfect logic: If that is the way he wants it, let him have it. And my ego is suddenly out of control!
The point is there is a Martha in all of us, just as there is a Mary . In fact, there is probably a lot of Mary in Martha and a lot of Martha in Mary. The challenge is balance and in letting them get along. And when we sit down before the feet of God, let our inner Martha fail to rejoice in the moment. And when we go about preparing the meals of life, let us work, not with comparisons or resentments, but with the joy of knowing His unconditional love.

Jesus is really telling us to stop our fretting and fussing-a lot of the stuff that worries us is nothing but chaff. Jesus needed more than food , namely the warmth of having someone to listen, perhaps after another frustrating day with the apostles vying for positions of power in this earthly kingdom they imagined he would bring. Just like Jesus in last Sunday’s Gospel we all need someone at times to listen . Good loyal friends who gave me their ear have helped me through many of the storms in my life. I have made it the turning point in this poem I wrote recently about one of those times.

Shackled in prison, /Down a deep hole

Churchill’s ‘black dog’/Dark night of the soul.

When depression hit me /And I carried that cross

Life had no meaning /All purpose was lost.

Each day was so empty./I felt sad and alone.

Nowhere felt safe./Nowhere felt home.

Hope had dried up./My faith, frail and weak.

Nothing gave solace/When comfort I’d seek.

Went to the church, /knelt in the pews.

Screamed at the Lord/ but nothing came through.

Or so it seemed,/ Barren of grace,

A desert of dryness,/ a cold empty space.

Forsaken, abandoned/ Like Christ on his cross

Who cried to the Father, -Our salvation, the cost.

In darkness drowning/Under a cloud.

The beauty of nature/Now just a grey shroud.

I had to pour out my pain /For healing to start.

To loyal friends who listened/When I opened my heart.

Counting my blessings/I had more than a few-

A doctor who cared,/prescribed tablets ,too.

So, if just like me/You feel down in the dumps,

The light has gone out/And your spirit has slumped,

Hang in there, be patient,/Tho’ half empty the glass

One day you’ll feel well /For this too will pass.

The colour of flowers/The song of the birds

Will return in abundance-I give you my word!

You’ll smile once again/And have a good laugh.

Or perhaps walk with me /the white sands of Culdaff.( paddy@okanes.org)

Moon Landing

It was one of my big disappointments to miss the moon landing as a youth. I so much wanted to see it, thought it was in the middle of the night, but I was working in a shelter for the homeless in Dublin that summer and we had no TV. Last weekend at Masses here I remembered that great event when fifty years ago Apollo 11 landed on the moon . I also shared the following story . Most remember astronaut Neil Armstrong's first words as he stepped onto the moon's surface: "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." But few know about the first meal eaten on the moon. Buzz Aldrin, the NASA Astronaut had taken aboard the spacecraft a tiny pyx provided by his pastor. Aldrin sent a radio broadcast to Earth asking listeners to contemplate the events of the day and give thanks. After blacking out the broadcast for privacy, Aldrin read, "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit." Then, silently, he gave thanks for their successful journey and received the Communion. Next he descended from the capsule onto the moon’s dusty surface. In Psalm 139 we are told that wherever we go, God is intimately present with us. Buzz Aldrin celebrated that experience in a special way on the surface of the moon.

Cheesy chat-up line:

‘If I could rearrange the alphabet I’d put U and I together’