The better part

Tuesday, October 8, 2019 27th Week in Ordinary Time
First Reading: John 3: 1-10 Gospel Reading: Lk 10:38-42
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he entered a village and a woman called Martha welcomed him to her house. She had a sister named Mary who sat down at the Lord’s feet to listen to his words. Martha, meanwhile, was busy with all the serving and finally she said, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the serving?”
But the Lord answered, “Martha, Martha, you worry and are troubled about many things, whereas only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen the better part, and it will not be taken away from her.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
Most of us follow established routines in life. Are these aligned with God’s Will? We can actually tell by using the relatedness test. This tool measures how an endeavor, engagement, transaction or activity is related to one’s calling in life and how necessary it is to the fulfillment of one’s vocation in life. With this evaluation tool, a priest for example, will immediately see that a worldly lifestyle is not in keeping with God’s will. A married person too will realize that staying in the church all day to the neglect of his family is misaligned with God’s Will.
Another indication is what Chiara Lubich refers to as “the call of the present moment”. God disturbs our established patterns from time to time to check our generosity. The Parable of the Good Samaritan is instructive. The priest and the Levite had valid reasons to rush to their destinations because they held important positions in their religious communities and may well have been on their way to a community service. But not even these legitimate reasons excused them from responding to the call of the present moment. When the moment calls for helping another person in dire need, we should be ready to make diversions from our established patterns.
Today’s Gospel reading deepens our reflection on this point. One person’s call may differ from another’s at a given moment and there is no point comparing which call is pleasing to God. For Mary, the call was to listen to the Word while for Martha the call was to do hospitable work in the kitchen. Both pleased God. Then Martha began comparing herself with Mary. All merits were gone because her heart was no longer on her “call of the present moment”.
The relatedness test and the “call of the present moment” help us determine whether or not the activities in our routine are aligned with God’s Will. Once we have established the alignment, we do them diligently guided by St. Dominic Savio’s motto: “Do ordinary things extraordinarily well. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M.