16th Sunday Reflection: What’s In A Name?
Franciscan Reflections From The Hermitage – What’s In A Name? – 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time – (Luke 10:38-42)
‘He who attempts to do things for others or for the world without deepening his own self-understanding, freedom, integrity, and capacity to love, will not have anything to give others.’ (Thomas Merton, Contemplation in a World of Action)
Martha is all action, busy with all the preparations, getting the meal prepared, getting the job done. But something is missing, something in Martha’s heart is unsettled, accusatory, even angry and resentful, “don’t you care, Jesus, that I am doing all this work on my own … (while my sister sits there doing nothing)… Tell her…”
Resentment leads to hardening of the heart; now there is no place for affection; no place for the use of Mary’s name. Here is a re-enactment of the saga of Genesis… “This woman, this woman that you, God, gave me… she is to blame.”
Here we find no contrast between the active and the contemplative ways of life. This is the foundation of our being and ability to receive Peace, Joy, and Love.
The first thing that Jesus does is to re-establish a personal and intimate connection with the other, “Martha, Martha…” It is in contemplation that we come to know the power of such presence that helps us re-focus and reconnect. It is this reconnection with the inner self, God’s Ruah, the breath of life within us that bring about a reconnection to peace, joy, and Love.
This is not something that we can create or demand, fight for, or even campaign over; it is a gift that is received as soon as we have established that reconnection to what is already within. Jesus said to the disciples “… into whatever household you enter, say first, ‘Peace be upon this house.’ And if there is a person of peace there, your ‘Peace’ will rest upon them; otherwise, it will revert to you.”
As the mystic hermit, Thomas Merton was searching for this same truth and identity, he came to a deep insight that each human person already has what they are looking for: “Within myself is a metaphorical apex of existence at which I am held in being by my Creator.” To live the truth of our existence is to be a saint. “A tree is holy,” he wrote, “simply by being a tree; flowers are saints gazing up into the face of God.”
St Francis also came to experience that God was nowhere farther than his own heart. Somewhere along the way [of his quest], he had begun finding God everywhere because God was with him all the time. He brought love with him on the road and that is why he found love all along the way. It was all so simple when he thought about it now. Love comes to those who have Love already. You find what you bring with you in your heart. God has first loved us and that gift is ours before we ever set out to find it. (Murray Bodo: Francis: The Journey and the Dream)
The search for our true identity requires honest, vulnerable self-love. Love of self is not selfishness but a humble recognition of our lives as true, good, and beautiful. To see as God sees. Without real love of self, all other loves are distorted. Lack of self-knowledge as St. Bonaventure once wrote, makes for faulty knowledge in all other matters.
The words of Jesus resonated with Mary because she already had connected to that foundation of Life within her.
Where have I chosen to place my priorities? Am I perhaps so busy, talking and doing and fixing, that I no longer can just sit and listen! Am I so full of my own opinions, ideas, and plans that I can longer hear the one who offers me life to the full!
As I give to others from the surplus that I have received, is there perhaps the shadow of resentment or bitter words that secretly seek to rob the other of identity and dignity?
Come aside and rest awhile… for we stand on Holy Ground. Listen… and you will live!
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