This blog follows the daily bible readings of the Catholic Church
Reading 1
Brothers and sisters:
You heard of my former way of life in Judaism,
how I persecuted the Church of God beyond measure
and tried to destroy it,
and progressed in Judaism
beyond many of my contemporaries among my race,
since I was even more a zealot for my ancestral traditions.
But when he, who from my mother’s womb had set me apart
and called me through his grace,
was pleased to reveal his Son to me,
so that I might proclaim him to the Gentiles,
I did not immediately consult flesh and blood,
nor did I go up to Jerusalem
to those who were Apostles before me;
rather, I went into Arabia and then returned to Damascus.
Paul was a killer: his complicity in the death of Stephen cannot be an invention of The Acts of the Apostles His admission of “persecution” means many acts of brutality towards innocent people. Paul’s honesty does not allow us to write off anybody’s chances of salvation, whatever they may have done. In view of the distinction made in yesterday’s blog between religion and Christian faith, we should note that religious certainty helped Paul become a violent persecutor. Paul’s brief reference to his conversion is mistranslated here. The Greek has “en emoi”, that is “in me” not “to me”. The difference may seem trivial, but the correct pronoun helps us site the drama of the Act’s accounts of his conversion in Paul’s soul. The son of God, known to Paul perhaps in the flesh and also through the suffering witness of his victims turns Paul towards God, forgiveness and a new life. We should say that Paul’s whole witness, as missionary and theologian, carried forward the witness of the many anonymous believers whom he persecuted.
Gospel
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.
Good ministers of the Church can burden themselves with much serving, both of their fellow Christians and of God. Of course we are to love God and our neighbour, but neither benefits from too much attention (I’m aware this may sound blasphemous as applied to God, but, actually does He need a lot of praise and prayer?). Service, especially mutual service in the body of Christ, always gets a good word and service of the poor and needy cannot be criticised.
Luke’s carefully crafted story tells us that being a disciple, that is, learning to follow Jesus way, is the one necessary thing. We should not take “sitting at the feet” in too limited a way: it’s a technical term for discipleship.
Listen; learn; do; that’s it.
Listening means attention to God who speaks in Jesus; and through his Spirit in all his creatures.
Learning means we allow God’s loving communication to become part of our being, in the same way as we “learn” our mother’s love.
Doing means acting and suffering as God’s children.
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