Hi, I'm Edward Sree, and welcome to all things Catholic where real faith meets real life.

Earlier this month, the Catholic Church had in the readings at Mass, one of my favorite

stories from the Gospel of Luke.

It's the biblical count of Mary and Martha, hosting Jesus at the house, and I don't know

about you, but I sometimes think that Martha gets too much of a bad reputation.

There they are, they're hosting the Lord of the universe over for dinner.

That's a lot of pressure.

And what's Mary doing?

She's just sitting with Jesus, I don't know, in the living room, and listening to Jesus

and Martha's in the kitchen may be getting everything already.

She feels the pressure, and she's the one that gets the rebuke.

She's the one that's told that, oh, no, Mary has chosen the better part, and many times

in the Catholic tradition, going way back to the early church, these two characters have

been used to exemplify the contemplative life and the active life.

So Mary is a model of the contemplative life that she's there and sitting at the feet

of Jesus, listening to Jesus attentively, but Martha's too busy and too active, and so

she represents us lay people who are out there busy in the secular world.

Well, I think that there's something more going on there.

There's certainly an element of contemplative and active life you could see there.

You know, we lay people are also called to be like Mary.

We're called to sit at the feet of Jesus and to listen to him, but we might not be able

to do that all the time.

...