(Jonah 3:1-10, Psalm 130, Luke 10:38-42)
It happened again last Friday as I met with my confessor. I was struggling with a complex situation that has no easy, clear answer. Father knew of it before we met. We had both prayed about what to do, and both of us came to the meeting with a similar practical solution for responding to the situation. I also came with judgment and hardness of heart. As we talked and I spoke honestly from my heart, it happened—again.
What is “it”? “It” is a moment of conversion orchestrated by Jesus, my friend. Such moments come most often for me when I experience Truth spoken in Love.
Sometimes that Truth is spoken directly by God when I read Scripture. The words on the page permeate my heart and mind. I see something differently. I am changed.
Sometimes that Truth is spoken through preaching, as Jonah spoke it in today’s first reading. I remember a homily several years ago that enabled me to see how the habit of forgiveness, difficult though it may be, is profoundly freeing for me, as well as for others. That homily changed me and my life.
Sometimes that Truth is spoken through other reading. I remember the day I discovered from reading the catechism that a sin I thought was venial was not. It took some months to be fully released from its power, but EVERYTHING in my life changed for the good once God graced me with release.
Sometimes that Truth is spoken through life—the casual words of a co-worker that suddenly enable me to see myself in clearer light, the mess my lack of attention to detail causes, the extra charity suddenly required by family circumstances that pull and push me to a greater capacity to love.
I love it most of all when Jesus, my friend, so gently yet clearly speaks Truth when I am in confession. It is then that I see myself as Martha in today’s Gospel. Martha speaks her heart and mind to Jesus, her friend and guest in her home. “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving?” While my words last Friday were different, their meaning was the same: “Lord, it is hard for me to do what I WANT TO DO to love you because of _____. I know my heart is hard. I don’t want to forgive. I don’t want to be generous. I know that is wrong, but I also want to stand on my own righteousness. Forgive me and support me, Lord, as you do.”
I always imagine Jesus saying, “Martha, Martha” with great gentleness is his voice. “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.” How gentle and beautiful is Jesus’ correction! He empathizes with Martha, sees things from her point of view: “You are anxious and worried about many things.” Then he gives her a different point of view and stretches her heart: “There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.” He asks her to see things from Mary’s point of view; he empathizes with her, too. Jesus does not say to Martha, “Sit here at my feet with Mary.” He did not ask Martha to become Mary. That was not the conversion he asked. The conversion he asked of Martha was to see the goodness in Mary and let her be.
Jesus apparently continued to appreciate Martha’s hospitality. Martha, Mary, and their brother Lazarus were perhaps Jesus’ best “lay” friends. He frequented their home in Bethany. He went to be with them and raise Lazarus from the dead, even though he knew that action would be a final straw in the conflict with the scribes and Pharisees. They gave a party for him the day before Palm Sunday. He stayed in Bethany (probably at their house) at night during the first part of Holy Week.
Jesus’ correction of Martha was the correction of a friend. Jesus says in the Gospel of John, “You are my friends if you do what I command you.”
When Jesus corrects his friends, there is joy. It isn’t a great burden of guilt or shame. A confessor I once had told me, “You know it is Jesus who corrects and convicts you because your response is, “Oh, yes, I see now what I must do, and I want to do it.” I have found this through the years to be consistently true. I also experience sorrow and regret for what I have done, but it is a freeing sorrow and regret. Sometimes I see the need for reparation or penance. Always an impulse of hope goes through me.
And so it was last Friday. Jesus spoke to my heart with Truth. I saw why and how I was wrong. I saw how to choose “the better part” and let go of pride and self-righteousness. I’m still not looking forward to doing what I need to do in the situation, but Jesus, my friend, converted me enough that I can let his grace guide me. I truly want to do it.
What a wonderful thing our Catholic faith is, that it gives us the Sacrament of Penance to give structure to the discipline of correction by Jesus. It gives us a way through the sacrament to be touched by Jesus through the words of absolution. In confession God takes our recognition of what we have done wrong and transforms it with the grace needed to be truly changed, converted, released, moved to be closer to his image.
What a great grace!
Prayer:
Lord, thank you for every time you see me as Martha, for every time you gently correct me. I know that correction by God is not always gentle—it has not always been gentle for me. I have not always approached you as friend who loves me enough to tell me Truth. I have not always listened to you when you spoke Truth gently. I, too, have spent time in the belly of the whale, as Jonah did yesterday for disobeying you. I have fought with you, as we will see Jonah do tomorrow. But today, let me be Martha. Let me always bring my heart, mind, and will to you for you to see. Let me be open to your gentle correction as friend. Never let me be departed from you again. Hold me close. Let your love surround me.
