His Little Martha

"I think I'm sensing a pattern here. Perhaps, my little Martha-mind, this is how all prayer must begin and end for you: in surrender."

In the wake of dear St Martha's feastday, Jesus and I have been chatting a lot about busyness: not necessarily the literal physical brand of busyness; but my own unique level of mental preoccupation and internal dialogue that keeps me from ever being still and quiet in the depths of my soul. Frequent Adoration has brought to my attention the extent to which mental busyness plagues my relationship with God; but this past week Jesus has been leading me into quietness and simplicity in beautiful ways.

A dear friend (and religious sister!) once told me that prayer is not complete until it is shared; so scary as it may seem to bare the rawness of your heart and the intimacy of your relationship with God to the wide world of the interwebs, that's exactly what I'mma do.

This blog post goes out to the other Marthas of the world: firstly to those who, like me, get caught up in internal busyness and an unending stream of unnecessary thoughts and worries. But secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I'm sharing my conversations with Jesus for everyone who has ever wondered why the heck Martha's sister Mary would bother sitting at His feet.

So many people - even Christians quite firm in other aspects of their faith - don't believe that prayer is possible. Maybe they think it's a viable reality for nuns who spend seven hours a day on their knees or missionaries working in the depths of the Amazon. "But little old me, going through high school, or uni, or a 9-5 job - intimate communication and relationship with God? Not likely."

Prayer, St Teresa of Avila writes, is nothing else than a close sharing between friends. 

As part of my vocation as a missionary with NET, I spend an hour, sometimes more, every day, talking to my best Friend. And to many people, that hour spent in front of the Blessed Sacrament could be seen as wasted time. Some days even I wonder if I'm simply talking to myself. 

But if I am only talking to myself; if prayer isn't possible; if there is no personal, loving Christ with whom I share intimately, then all of the work I do, all of the busyness that consumes my day, is futile. If Martha's work is to have any value, it must flow from a heart like Mary's; a heart that delights in her best and truest friend, and has learned to sit at His feet, enraptured. 

Prayer is possible the moment you begin the conversation. All it takes is 'hello'. All it takes is 'speak, Lord, your servant is listening.'

Sometimes what it takes - as on Tuesday morning - is "Why can't I just be still before You, Jesus?"

And when we begin to listen, He speaks:

"What's on your mind? Surrender it all before me and let go."

I wrote a list - a very, very long list ranging from 'dishes' to 'psych study' to 'season three of Sherlock'. I purged my mind until it was blank; and then I exhaled. It felt good to get it all out. Zoning back into my conversation with Jesus, He reassured me that writing it all down meant that I could let it go for the time being:

"Right! Got it! It's all safe here - you're not going to forget any of them now, so lay them aside for the next hour and be here with me, all other things aside. Surrender."

And all of a sudden, none of it mattered any more. My brain - for the first time in forever - shut up. It was just us - Him, still and constant; me, learning to sit at His feet.

"My little pendulum - come lose momentum with me for a while. See how clear the world becomes when you stop moving? Clarity is needful; so by extension, stillness is vital."

Occasionally my mind wandered back. I began to fret that this time not spent thinking about all of the tasks I had to do would leave me ill-equipped for the rest of the day. Maybe I was being lazy? Why wasn't I busy? I should be serving and giving to the world, rather than receiving from God!

"Martha, Martha, leave Mary be. Do not feel guilt for sitting at my feet. You are not being lazy - you are fulfilling the highest calling on your life - intimate communication with the only one with any ability to carry out those other tasks which you would strive to do alone.

If you 'achieved' nothing with today other than prayer, would you feel like a failure as a Christian?"

I gulped, because in all honesty, I probably would.

"Where is the Truth?"

"The truth," I wrote, "Is that I use my secondary vocations of each day not to lead me back into communion with you but to achieve a sense of self-worth through productivity and the esteem of others."

I could almost sense His smile as I begin to get closer to the ugly truth: that I was uncomfortable with my own stillness, be it mental or physical, because I believed that my worth was reliant on my own productivity in serving Him and others.

"And where is the Truth?"

The words, adapted from John Paul II, flooded my heart almost immediately:

That I am not the sum of my strengths and successes

 but of Your love for me.

"There we go. Getting somewhere. 

You cannot earn Love. Love is a free gift. Kate, I give you my love; I give you my hope. Come, find your rest in me. Surrender."

Surrender isn't easy. Time and time again I have to pry my controlling fingers off all of the things to which they cling and abandon those gifts into the hands of Christ. And the struggle is real! When I tell Him that I surrender, He knows me well enough to question it:

"When you claim to surrender everything, do you understand what you are truly saying? Are you prepared to give ALL to me - your comfort and reputation and skills and friendships and future? 

Ouch. That just got real. Especially reputation and skills - not easy things to let go of, even to a God as good as Him.

"This is not an easy sacrifice. But you're right. I am good, and trustworthy. The best place for your comfort and reputation and skills and friendships and future to be is in my hands. They're certainly safer there than if you should try to secure them by your own efforts."

When we get down to the nitty gritty, the Lord never fails to call it like it is. 

Martha reigns in me when I try to secure it all by my own efforts. My busyness is so often a mask for a deeper longing for validation; an addiction to being praised for the work that I've done for God's kingdom. All too often I derive my value from a sense of comparative accomplishment, a sense that I'm doing more than old Mary over there who's just sitting down on the floor.

But in the same words He spoke to Martha two milennia ago, Jesus - in the stillness and the surrender of silence - reminded me that only one thing is necessary. 

Receive. 

Prayer need not be effort. Just let me speak to you, console you, hold you close.

Renew the simplicity of a child's mind within you, my little one. You are more than your busyness. Mercy flows out of a heart at rest. 

Shhhh....  learn to receive. 

Stop making an effort - you are tying yourself up in knots. Here, listen to me tenderly call your name: Kate! Kate! Only one thing is necessary. Choose THIS. 

Sometimes it's easy to let prayer slip away from me as I become preoccupied with obligations and innovations: doing things for God becomes more important than doing things with God. 

But there, in His gaze, in the silence and the surrender, I fall in love. And it's that love - that deep, infinitely satisfying relationship with Love Himself - that makes any other task worth doing.

Take the time to choose the one thing that is necessary.

Choose Him.

~~~~~~