Lk. 10: 38-42
Do you have time to sit at the feet of the Lord? Do we need to sit at the feet of Jesus to have spiritual transformation?
One of my companions shared with me a difficulty that probably all of us face in our day-to-day life. His brother is working in one of the leading construction companies. He is a well qualified engineer and in charge of a few of the projects of that company. But his work load is so high that he has to work almost fourteen hours per day, often even on Sundays that it is not possible for him to go for the Mass even on Sunday’s.
I think many youngsters encounter similar situations especially the working youth. They are engaged in building their career and at the same time are struggling to balance both their work and spiritual life. Placing myself in this context, I just introspected my own life. It is true that mostly I am faithful to the practices of piety but what about spending a qualitative time with the Lord. All of us are engaged with lots of activities. However, we find time for everything but often tend to compromise our personal encounter with Christ for the sake of our activism.
We often console ourselves by reminding us that work is prayer. It is true if we have constant union with God then everything becomes prayer. But we need to keep in mind our God is a God who is with us as a Eucharistic presence. If we really love someone we make it a point of visiting that person, however busy we are, because we enjoy that person’s presence and it enthuses and empowers us…
When we discuss this issue, we have lots of questions clouding our minds, like, God is present everywhere then why we need to sit in his presence and pray? Once I posed this question to a group of fifth standard catechism students. In fact, I did not have a definite answer for this question in my mind. But a girl opened up my mind with her brilliant answer. She answered me that air is present everywhere. But no balls are getting pumped by itself. If we want to fill the air in the ball, then we need to pump the air into the ball. Similarly certain places like the church for instance, can fill our being with the presence of the Lord.
Today’s gospel passage convinces us of this fact. It takes us to the reception of Jesus at Martha’s house. Jesus was not worried about the external preparations of this family. But he looks into their internal dispositions. When we read the gospel passage, we may tend to think that Martha is at fault because she was lost in external preparations. But we cannot fully blame her. Being the eldest daughter of the family, it was her duty to prepare a warm welcome for Jesus. Even when she approached Jesus requesting the help of Mary, it is out of her love for Jesus. But Jesus reminds her that the most important aspect in our lives is tuning our ears to the Word of God and allowing the Word to transform our lives. For this transformation we need to sit at the feet of the Master like Mary.
We live in a workaholic culture. It is true that our workloads are high and our desire to build a good career demands a good share of our time but when Jesus knocks at our door, if we don’t have time to welcome Him, he will not open our door by himself and come in. He respects our freedom. And always remember, prayer is nothing but giving our time for the one who has give us time. Let us make conscious efforts to find little time everyday to sit at the Master’s feet, welcome him into our house; let us tune our ears to His Word and allow him to transform our lives to be his witnesses.