Pilgrim progress- a disciple on a journey!

On the 29th of July, as Church we celebrate the liturgical feastday of St. Martha, a celebration marked in the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox churches, and commemorated by the Lutheran Church and the Anglican Communion. Personally, I always feel that Martha gets a bit of a raw deal, something like St. Thomas. She is remembered for fussing about and being anxious and yet we forget that hers was a great acclamation of faith “I believe that you are the Lord, the one who is to come”. This is quite similar to St. Thomas who is renowned for his disbelief and wanting to touch the wounds of Christ before He would believe. Yet from him we have one of the most poignant prayers, “My Lord and my God”. As we reflect upon the Bethany scene of Mary and Martha, with Martha being somewhat admonished for fretting and worrying, Jesus says to her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but only one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the better part.” There is...

Bethany scene Design by Sr. M. Angelica Ballan, pddm For today's liturgy, we are presented with the scene of Mary and Mary who welcome the Lord into their house at Bethany. Mary ‘sat and listened’. This was the usual posture of a disciple of any teacher in the ancient world. However the disciples were usually male, so Mary must have been quietly breaking the rule that reserved study for males, not females. Maybe this was also a fact which irked Martha. She was not merely asking for help. She was also demanding that Mary keep to the traditional way of behaving. For years I used to think that this Gospel was something like the Enneagram or the Myer Briggs personality tests: "Am I ‘a Mary?" or "Am I a ‘Martha?".  Yep, I was convinced, I was a ‘Martha’, running around all the time doing bits and pieces. Making sure everyone has what they need, trying to anticipate what is happening next to make sure everything is ready. Martha was the micro-manag...

A while ago, a friend of mine had to explain to me what a ‘Monica complex’ was, a reference to obsessive compulsive behaviour of one of the characters from the TV series ‘Friends’. Well, how about a ‘Martha complex’!? Today the Church celebrates the feastday of this saint who in a way suffered the fate of St. Thomas (aka Doubting Thomas) who is remembered for his lack of faith and not his discipleship after this! Monica kind of got labelled as the complaining workaholic who went to Jesus to get her sister Mary to do some work. She was also the one to reprimand Jesus for his tardiness when her brother Lazarus died! That said, the liturgy of today (at least here in Canada) gifts us with the Gospel text of Luke 10:  38-42. We are presented with the scene of Mary and Mary who welcome the Lord into their house at Bethany. Mary ‘sat and listened’. This was the usual posture of a disciple of any teacher in the ancient world. However the disciples were usually male, so Mary must hav...