1. The Gospel.
The Liturgy of the Mass teaches us the truths of the Catholic Church gradually and in order. The Liturgy of Holy Week cannot be understood unless we first understand the Liturgy of Advent. And today’s Gospel on Mary and Martha cannot be understood unless we understand the earlier five Gospels.
The last five Gospels dealt with ‘Love of Neighbour.’ For five Sundays the Church had been teaching ‘Love of Neighbour.’ In fact, the Liturgy had been dealing on this topic since ‘Corpus Christi.’ And with good reason, because today nobody seems even to know how to describe what it means to ‘love one’s neighbour.’ Ok. Christ prophesied that this was going to happen today. And, indeed, it is happening. Why? Because to love your neighbour you must first learn how to love God. And only after you have learned how to love God can you your neighbour. Nobody or very few love God, because few know God. As a consequence there can be no love of neighbour.
What is distressing is that, in between love of God and love of neighbour, there should be a right love for oneself since we should be loving our neighbour as much as we love ourselves. Only after there is love of God and proper love of self (as defined by St. Augustine) then and only then can there be love of neighbour.
Without love of God, there can be no proper love of self. Without proper love of self, there can only be hatred for oneself. And he who hates himself, hates everybody else. Now you know why there is so much hatred and so much killings. The defect is within the minds and the hearts of the hater. He hates himself.
The Gospel on Martha and Mary is a further explanation of ‘love of neighbour,’ St. Thomas comments.
2. The three steps towards perfection and their types.
To the question; ‘how can I attain everlasting life? Christ gave the answer and it can be reworded by todays Gospel. Again, the three steps that lead to everlasting life is; first, life of repentance. Secondly, a life of hospitality. And thirdly, a life of contemplation. We mentioned the fact that these steps were reworded. The common words used to describe these steps are; Repentance, Faith, Hope and Charity. Since Hope is just the result of Faith it is often excluded in the enumeration. So spiritual writers write; repentance, Faith and Charity.
These three steps are represented by three types. Repentance is represented by St. John the Baptist. Hospitality, which is the good works that should accompany Faith is represented by Martha. and contemplation that is perfect Faith enlivened by Charity is represented by Mary.
Martha is the beginning of supernatural love of God and neighbour. This is superior to natural love of neighbour, like the natural love parents have for their children, or a friend for a friend.
Mary is the perfection of love of God and neighbour. Note that as Christ, Himself said, these two always go together since both are in the supernatural level.
3. Life of repentance.
Repentance is the cleaning of the soul. This is the proper disposition before one can receive Faith and Charity, which is the love of God and neighbour. There are three activities during the life of repentance; prayer, fasting and the performance of good works. All of these are in the natural level.
St. John the Baptist is the type for repentance. He lived and preached in the desert and he is the personification, also, of the monastic life. Monastic life and repentance are synonymous. Its goal is for the soul to know its sins and repent for them. This prepares the soul for the next step, which is Faith and Charity, which is the love of God and neighbour. Faith and Charity goes together. Faith without Charity is dead.
The life of repentance is impossible today because the Church, herself, who is to teach it, is teaching the opposite. The Church, with Pope Francis, is pushing people to sin; like to continue their adultery, to commit sacrilege by receiving Communion in the state of mortal sin, to tolerate and welcome Sodomist, for Protestants and pagans to remain outside the Catholic Church, etc…
Without repentance, it is impossible to proceed to the next step; the first degree of love of God and neighbour whose type was Martha.
4. Martha and the practice of hospitality.
Since it is impossible to perceive the love of God and neighbour, Scriptures gave us a visible signs of its presence; and this is in the form of hospitality. And the figure presented to us in the first reading is the story of Abraham entertaining two Angels and Christ, thus three persons. The three appeared as three men.
Everybody is acquainted with the term ‘hospitality’. We all do it when we entertain our families, relatives, friends and guests. But this hospitality of Martha is a completely different story.
For one thing Martha, like Abraham, had faith; meaning they had finished their repentance. Abraham was not entertaining friends and relatives. He was showing his hospitality to angels and God. Likewise, Martha was not showing hospitality to friends and relatives. She was hosting Jesus Christ and His apostles.
This is the important element of Martha’s story. Her hospitality was an act of Faith. It was been done to God and saints. We can imitate Martha if we, too, show hospitality to Christ and the saints. Since Christ is no longer visible, we should, at least, show our hospitality to people with Faith, Hope and Charity, i.e to people who are truly Catholic. To do so is to show hospitality to Christ; for Christ said, ‘if you do it to these, you have done it to Me.’ So showing hospitality to ordinary people who do not have Faith, Hope and Charity is still hospitality. But it is not the hospitality shown by Martha.
When Pope Francis show hospitality to Jews, Evangelicals, atheists, abortionists, migrants and transexual….this is hospitality of some kind but it is not the hospitality of Martha because these people do not have Faith, Hope and Charity as proven by their sinful state. And when he refuses even just to talk to good bishops who simply want to ask why they had been uncanonically removed from their dioceses…….that is refusing to show hospitality to Christ. He is not even a Martha. He has no love for God or neighbour This inhospitable practice is common in curial offices. Like father like son.
Of course, it is impossible for most people to know if a guest has Faith, Hope and Charity. So the monastic practice is to show hospitality to all; saints or sinners. When there is fidelity to this practice in one’s effort to love God and neighbour, then God, in His goodness will send a saint or an angel to be your guest to whom you can practice hospitality.
As St. Benedict wrote; ‘you show hospitality as if your guest is Jesus Christ. If your guest is not Jesus, because of your good intention, you will receive a Marthan reward. Christ mentioned this in the past Sundays; ‘he who welcomes a prophet because he is a prophet, will receive a prophet’s reward. He who receives a holy man because he is holy will receive a holy man’s reward.’
See, the necessity of having Faith to be able to show hospitality to Christ. You have to believe and see that Christ is in your guest….even if the guest is a criminal. Never receive a migrant because he is a migrant. That is pagan hospitality. There is no reward for that.
When your guest is obviously without Faith, Hope and Charity, it is still hospitality but I repeat, it is not the hospitality of Martha.
In the time of St. Benedict, people became monks and lived in community to attain Faith, Hope and Charity. In the first stage, they repent. In the second stage they become Marthas. Since the monks are seeking God, there is a great probability that they have Faith, Hope and Charity. So anyone who live in that community and show hospitality to them, like cooking for them, like Martha, in in fact showing hospitality to Christ. That is the main purpose of community life in the monastery. But sadly, that is not what is happening today. Unable to reach Faith, Hope and Charity due to lack of repentance, it has become useless showing them hospitality since they, themselves do not have it.
Hospitality is serving Christ or those who are Christ like because they have Faith, Hope and Charity. The service is mostly physical; cooking, serving, entertaining, etc. Like what we commonly do to our guest. Except in the case of Martha, the hospitality is done to Christ or those who are Christ like.
The act of hospitality done by Martha needs Faith.
To become a Mary one has to pass being a Martha. No one can reach contemplative life without passing through the hospitality of Martha. St. Benedict emphasised this in his rule. No one can become a hermit without mastering community life. The hermitical or contemplative life is the life of Mary. Community life or the active life is the life of Martha.
5. Mary and hearing the Words of Christ.
While the active life is more physical, the contemplative life is more spiritual. Contemplation is a life of prayer. It is not a life of prayer the way we understand it where we keep on talking to God. It is when we listen to God.
It is adapted precisely when we are old, weak and unable to do physical activities. That is the time we are able to reach that spiritual state. So the timing is good. The grace of old age is precisely that; that we have the leisure to listen to the Word of God, either by listening to readings or reading by ourselves or purely by meditating on the things we have read in the past. We don’t need a community for that, though it is still a big help. At this point some become hermit.
Today there are so many trying the heremitical life. Most of them are unprepared because they have not undergone a thorough Martha way of life. Most often they become hermits because they cannot stand community life. It is an escape to an artificial silence by avoiding people. They cannot stand people. So it cannot be ‘love of God and neighbour.’
6. Martha’s only error.
There was nothing wrong with Martha’s hospitality. It was very good. Her mistake was when she asked Christ to call Mary to leave her better portion to be engaged in the lower act of hospitality. Thus Christ rebuked her.
7. Ganswain’s ‘Martha and Mary’ comparison.
Archbishop Ganswain, Pope Emeritus Benedict’s constant companion had been causing waves. Earlier he mentioned the fact that Pope Benedict did not resign. Surely he said that with Benedict’s permission so we have to accept that. But the idea of two Popes is a problem since the Church can only have one Pope.
Then the good bishop raised the idea that one of the Pope is contemplative and the other Pope is active. Pope Benedict is the contemplative and Pope Francis is the active. This brings us to the only evangelical narration about Martha, the active, and Mary, the contemplative. But this cannot explain the diarchy proposed because in the diarchy the two Popes are in the same level. But in the case of Martha and Mary, Mary is superior while Martha is an inferior. If applied, Pope Benedict would be the Pope and Francis would only be a bishop.
But Pope Francis does not qualify as Martha because his hospitality are towards adulterers, transgenders, abortionist, atheist, Protestants; people who are not Christ like. Therefore he is not even a Martha. He is lower than Martha. So the idea of diarchy cannot be applied to the two Popes. But the idea is still there; that there are two Popes. Doctrinally, this cannot be. So this must be resolved.
8. Here is the syllogism.
So, the latest announcement is that Pope Benedict did not resign so we have two Popes, one is doing the contemplative ministry of the Papacy and the other is doing the active ministry of the Papacy. The closest evangelical comparison we have to accept that theory is the Gospel on Martha and Mary. But this Gospel does not describe two ministries in one Papacy. It describes one higher state of spiritual life (described as the better portion) and another lower state of spiritual life (described as ‘anxious about many thing’ concerning hospitality for Christ). So a diarchy is not possible. Plus we have the problem that while Pope Benedict fall in the contemplative level, Pope Francis does not correspond to the active level because Francis’ activities are not spiritual but socio-migrant -economic and global warming. So we are left with a problem that has still to be resolved. The resolution by which the very salvation of our souls will depend.