Learning Theology Like Martha And Mary—Is Mary's Way Best?

Sometimes you just have to sit there

Happy Friday.

This Sunday, the Church presents us with the beautiful and challenging story of the sisters Martha and Mary. In this story, we hear of the two sisters and their very different approaches to serving Jesus. In this account, we have the two classic pillars of Catholic vocational life: the active and the contemplative. More so than that, this dual foundation can be applied to many areas of the spiritual, apostolate, and ecclesial life.

Let us hear what the story says:

Jesus entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him.
She had a sister named Mary who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me."
The Lord said to her in reply, "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."

As Americans, particularly as American Catholics, we have a natural tendency to activity. It has been drilled into our heads from an early age that anything that we want or can achieve must be accomplished by hard work and radical perseverance. While not putting down the need for hard work or activity, I would like to challenge us, including myself, to look at the example of Martha and Mary in this Sunday’s Gospel; Particularly as it relates to theological study and the discovery of theological truths.

The story of Martha and Mary, as mentioned above, is typically used—and rightly so— as a classic example of the Lord’s preference of spiritual activity. For example, take the vocational life of a diocesan priest and that of a cloistered nun. Using the example of Martha and Mary, we could replace Martha for the priest and Mary for the cloistered nun. The priest is concerned—justly so—with the affairs of the world. He is concerned with the life of the parish, the spiritual life of his parishioners, the finances of the parish, and the day-to-day affairs of being a spiritual father in the world. Our story clearly shows that the priest is, like Martha, “burdened with much serving.” In carefully considering Our Lord’s actions, it is clear that He does not condemn Martha for her service. Mary, on the other hand, like the cloistered nun, is not concerned with much activity. Rather, like Mary, she is sitting next to the Lord, at His feet, “listening to him speak.” Rather than a condemnation of apostolic activity, Our Lord’s words to Martha are meant as a challenge to her over of priority.

Martha’s concern, first and foremost, is to serve the Lord. I think many of us feel the same way. We think, rightly so, that we must “do” much in the service of the Lord—that our love is measured to the degree that we “do much”. However, Our Lord, before we do anything, teaches us that we must first sit at His feet. We must, in like manner to the beloved disciples, lay our head on His breast.

In the history of theological reflection, beginning with the Apostles themselves, through the Fathers of the Church, to the Scholastics of the Middle Ages and to our own time, various schools of inquiry have taken shape. The masterful tomes of the Middle Ages reveal the depth of theological insight that can be reached by employing the wisdom of philosophy and combining it with the wisdom of Divine Revelation. The Catechisms such as Trent and the Baltimore reveal the rigor of moral and theological truth combined with the clarity of that style. All of these have their place in the Church and we should not disregard them. However, through the example of the Church Fathers and the necessity of the rediscovery of their methodology, through the examples of Hans Urs von Balthasar, Pope St. John Paul II, Joseph Ratzinger, and Henri de Lubac, I propose that we must balance the theological method of rational inquiry with Mary’s relationship-first approach. Let us take that example as our starting point, and flesh out what this “kneeling theology” looks like in practice.

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This theological reflection offers a challenging example for effective theological study. To read the rest of the essay, consider upgrading to a paid subscription. You also support me, my family, and this publication!