(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: http://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Mass-Blog-for-the-16th-Sunday-in-Ordinary-Time-2022.mp3)
“Life is a journey, not a destination.” That bit of wisdom has been credited to Ralph Waldo Emerson, but what he actually wrote in a series of essays was:
“To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.”
Though our life is a journey, we often ignore the wisdom faith promises as life’s purpose and focus on the seductive scenery rushing by on the way to our life’s end. Chasing our own selfish ends tends to divert our journey down dead-end streets.
In that way, we are more often a Martha than a Mary – two of Jesus’s earliest female disciples whom we read about in this Sunday’s gospel (Lk 10:38-42). While Mary recognized the prize of wisdom attainable by sitting at Jesus’s feet, Martha hoped to achieve her Master’s approval by taking the initiative and waiting on him hand and foot.
“Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.” The Lord said to her in reply, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”
Such is humanity in its pursuit of greatness over wisdom. We pursue quick, rewarding short-term goals – often at any cost – to feed our pride. In so doing, we deprive our soul of the ability to absorb the slow-won wisdom the Holy Spirit offers us for a living.
Maybe another way of looking at our attraction to such do-it-yourself destiny can be found in what humanity often does in the name of science. We can all agree that medical advances in heart transplants have saved many lives. A worthy goal! But according to a report from the director of the Heart Transplant Unit of Tel Aviv’s Sheba Medical Center, (appearing in The Wall Street Journal, June 1, 2022), heart surgeons from Wuhan’s Tongji Medical College were found to have harvested a heart from a death-row prisoner before he was executed—effectively acting as executioners themselves while choosing another life more worthy of his.
In other words, the goal of saving a life came at the cost of a life perceived as unworthy to complete its own journey. The unforeseen cost may have been the souls of those involved in planning this detour. The author acknowledges that China has a history of harvesting organs from death-row prisoners—especially from religious minorities like Falun Gong and Uyghur Muslims. The author notes that making comparisons to Nazi medical atrocities may not have mobilized action against such evil because, well, SO many allegations of atrocities tend to use that benchmark! Who can keep track?
Sunday’s gospel reading demonstrates humanity’s hesitation to slow down, listen, and look; to recognize as an illusion the notion that we can choose life’s ends and to exchange that notion for the faith required to find our meaning by living.
Wisdom is the destination of every human life’s journey. It’s a long route requiring patience, strength and attention to the two-way care and feeding of others taking the trip along with us.
–Tom Andel
We are often so busy or preoccupied that we don’t take time to “smell the coffee!” As one author put it “we are leading lives of quiet desperation.”
We become so busy being busy, many of us forget why we are here. We don’t ask ourselves often enough, why was I born? What is my ultimate purpose? Where do I end up when I die?
Beginning with the end in mind is very useful when planning a trip, planning ones career, making an investment, heck even going to the grocery store.
How much time do we spend planning our eternal destiny? This is the ultimate life purpose. Christ shows us the way!
I always liked the quote, “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.” But then I learned the source of that quote: Woody Allen–who is an atheist as well as a comic and film maker. Allen’s cinematic and literary works are considered masterpieces, but they’re also filled with angst about the meaning of life. Allen’s career has been a struggle to find truth through his art. This yin and yang can be seen in the relationship between Martha and Mary in this week’s gospel reading. While Martha is driving herself nuts trying to please a teacher she wants to impress, Mary only wants to learn the truth of life, straight from the source–which she believes is God. But Martha can’t know Mary’s joy as long as her mind is set on making herself look good while Jesus is with them. Martha obviously planned to make Jesus’s visit one he’d remember. But it was Mary who came away with a lesson she’d never forget, and by shutting up and paying attention to the truth, her life was suddenly filled with meaning. I still like Woody Allen’s quote about how to impress God–maybe even more now, because I think of it as the lesson Martha failed to take away from Jesus’s visit. It makes me want to emulate Mary’s approach to life even more. Don’t worry about trying to impress God. A life spent loving and forgiving is the only masterpiece God wants from us.
My question is; What did Jesus say to Mary that made her want to stay at His feet to hear more? The Bible says Jesus taught in parables, how many parables are written in the gospels, may be ten which are repeated in each gospel with the writer giving their take on what happened. Did Jesus repeat these same parables to Mary or did He teach others that are not recorded. There are other areas of the Bible where the writer states “Jesus taught the crowds”, what did He teach besides the parables? I’m sure He had many stories(lessons) about His Father and life that are not written, Why?
There are also many inconsistencies among the gospels about what Jesus said. The problem is humans aren’t perfect–and the humans surrounding Jesus during his ministry were far from it. The true miracle is that Jesus’s divine wisdom survives the filter of humanity!