Memorial of St.Martha

Lk 10:38-42

(Given during adoration for the Youth for Life "Pro-Life Boot Camp")

How many of your parents are active in the Church and in your home parishes? That’s pretty good. I’m sure many of your parents are pretty active in the parish because they really love the Lord and really want to serve the Lord. Now how many of you (please don’t raise your hands) have heard your parents complain about how it always seems like they are doing the work and nobody else is doing the work? Or maybe for yourself, that you feel like everyone else is not working as hard as you are? It’s not a fun feeling. Especially those of you who really like to take responsibility into your own hands.

Today is your day!! Because you are a busybody; just like Martha.
But right here right now, all of you are being just like Mary. Because you are sitting here at the Lord’s feet listening to him and spending time with him, while the other Marthas are working. In life, sometimes you are going to be a Martha or you are going to be a Mary. But right now you are Mary.

Now, you’re probably thinking to yourself, which one is better… Martha or Mary? Because I want to be the best one. In the Gospel we just heard, it looked like Mary was the better one because Jesus says to Martha that she “…has chosen the better part.” But I’m going to let you in on a little secret. They are BOTH good. They are both the better part, but what separates Martha and Mary is something that Martha does.

Martha was the one who welcomes Jesus into her home. She is the host of this gathering. So it is her responsibility to make sure that Jesus is well taken care of. And everything was going great until….what? Until Martha started looking at what Mary was doing! And that’s when she started to feel envy and jealousy. She wanted to do what Mary was doing and so got distracted from her task.

And speaking of distractions...for those of you that don’t who I am, I’m Dcn. Reuben Chen and I am also a seminarian, which means I am studying to become a priest. Seminarians all goto the seminary, it’s a “priest school” and every day we have Mass and prayers together. We would do a lot of things together and after our prayers were done, we could leave. But when I first entered the seminary, I was young and silly. And I wanted to do my best in seminary and so I tried to pray extra hard. So after Mass, I would stay a little while longer to pray and thank God for the gift of the Eucharist. I would close my eyes and have this long and beautiful prayer and then I would open my eyes and see that my brother seminarians was also still in the chapel. So I closed my eyes and started praying more. Because I didn’t want to be outdone!! And I opened my eyes after I was done and looked around and there were still seminarians praying! I was getting really frustrated! I wanted to be the holiest one, so I prayed some more and some more. And then I opened my eyes and everyone was gone. Finally! Satisfied that I beat everyone at being holy, I got up to goto dinner and guess what? Dinner was over!! I went to bed hungry because I tried to show off. And you know what else? I didn’t feel any holier either.

When we are doing the work of God, we are honoring Him and doing His work. This is good. But when we start comparing and looking at what other people are doing, we have the temptation to fall into sin. We get all worked up and just end up frustrating ourselves. I didn’t feel holier because I was comparing myself with my brother seminarians and staying extra long to show God I was better than they were. If I had just stayed in the chapel to REALLY give thanks to God, I would have done just that and God would have appreciated it more. But I lost sight of God, by turning to my brothers.

When we are doing the Lord’s work, as we are doing this weekend, we are here to bring ourselves into the presence of God like Mary was at the foot of Jesus. We are here to listen to Him and see what He would have us do. The ministry of pro-life and learning about how and what it means to be pro-life is so important because we can easily be distracted by what other people are doing, both by those who also say that they are pro-life and those that are not.

We are here this weekend to further the pro-life cause, to be a part of the culture of life and not the culture of death. This Holy Hour tonight is not only spent in adoration, a response to God’s love, but to strengthen you and give you the courage and wisdom to face the world tomorrow. For some of you, praying in front of abortion clinics and being active in the pro-life movement is a new thing and can also be a scary thing. When I was growing up, even though I thought I was “pro-life” I always thought that praying in front of abortion clinics was for those religious nuts. Now I know that is I who would be nuts for not praying for an end to abortion and the culture of death. For the seasoned “pro-lifers” you should already know that keeping a strong spiritual life in adoration and the sacrament gives you the strength you need to continue, to keep you focused on the task at hand and not to distract you from self-righteousness or other temptations that the devil uses to try and destroy us.

But for whatever reason you are here, attending this boot camp, you are here not because your parents sent and/or dragged you here, not because you want to have better pro-life arguments so you can know more than anybody else, and not because you want to show other people how pro-life you are. You are here because God has called you to be at His feet. He has called you to be faithful in keeping His mission of bringing the gift of Life to everyone in this world. And you have answered His call by desiring to grow ever closer to Him, falling deeper in love with Him in worship and adoration.

There are times when we are called to be Martha. There are times when we are called to be Mary. Whether we are Martha or we are Mary, remember that you must never lose sight of the Lord and forget why you are doing what you are doing. You are not doing it for yourselves, you are not doing it for other people, you are doing it for the Lord. When you do it for the Lord, you are choosing the better part. And the better part is always with the Lord.