Choose the Better Part

We’re all familiar with the story of Martha and Mary – Jesus arrives and Martha works her hardest to provide food and hospitality, while Mary sits at the feet of Jesus listening to him. Martha implores the Lord to chastise Mary, and in response, Jesus tells her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”

The Lord’s exhortation to Martha is not one of condemnation, but invitation. He was inviting Martha into the same posture that Mary was in – a posture of discipleship. If we are anxious and worried about many things, if we get too focused on the details or what comes next, or we’re furtively checking the time so we’re not late for kick-off, or if we treat the Liturgy as a box to be checked rather than as a mystery to be contemplated, we miss the one thing that is most important to focus on.

Where do the priests and ministers stand during the celebration of Mass? If you say the altar, perhaps you are right, colloquially, although the big stone table is really the altar. If you say the sanctuary, you are certainly more precise, although you are being very literal. In the Church, we love both / ands and symbols that have layers and layers of meaning. Where we stand in the sanctuary, what we see and witness at every Mass, is heaven.

That altar is not just any old table. It is at one moment the family table of this community, where we come together despite all our differences and share a meal together. Where we stand together moving, singing, responding with one voice and one body. We are not a “congregation” who just all showed up together, but an “assembly” – a building constructed with intention, where each of us plays a unique but indispensable part.

That altar is also the table of the Last Supper, where we see and are invited into that same meal that Christ shared with His disciples in the Upper Room 2,000 years ago.

That altar is the manger, the creche. It is the place where we celebrate the Word Becoming Flesh and God becoming Man. I love how on the ambo and altar at St. Bernadette in Westlake says “In the beginning was the word, and the word was Made Flesh” drawing our attention to the connection between what we hear, what we see, and what we receive. Because it is in our reception of Holy Communion that Christ “dwells among us.”

That altar is the Cross, where Christ gave Himself up for our salvation. It is the place where heaven meets earth, where the divine and the human touch.

That altar is where bread and wine are transformed into the very body and blood of Jesus, and with it we are transformed as well. St. Athanasius wrote “for the Son of God became man so that we might become God.”

That altar is Christ Himself standing amid His Church, standing to receive His Bride the Church. That is why during Mass we bow to the Altar, to reverence the presence of Christ who is the one who makes us a community here together.

I could spend hours going through each place that Christ is present to us in the Liturgy, because there are thousands of ways that He makes Himself known to us. I want to focus on just a couple to help us as we pray the Mass. The first is, who is it that reads the readings at Mass? You might say the priest or the deacon, or a lector. And you would be incorrect.

God reads the readings. The General Instruction for the Roman Missal #29 says that it is God Himself who speaks to us in the readings, and it is Christ who speaks to us in the Gospel. This makes perfect sense if you think about it – we call Jesus the “Word of God.”

Now, another question, who distributes communion? Jesus does! In the hymn for Holy Thursday, the Pange Lingua, we even sing that “Christ gives Himself with His own hand.” So, when you receive Holy Communion, it is not Joanne or Bill or even Fr. Dan who are handing you Jesus, it is Jesus who is giving Himself.

Last question for you, and we’ll make it easy for you and make it true or false. If you are not acting as a liturgical minister – sacristan, lector, altar server, extraordinary minister of holy communion – then you are not participating in the Mass. False! Every one of us in the assembly is called to full, conscious, and active participation.

We are not passive participants, “strangers or silent spectators” as Sacrosanctum Concilium would put it. We are the body of Christ, led by the priest who is the head of the body. We have a duty and a right to participate with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. What the priest offers on our behalf – bread, wine, and our prayers – we should be offering as well. That is the sense behind “may my sacrifice and yours be pleasing to God, the almighty Father.” By virtue of our Baptism, we have a dignity and a mission to share in Christ’s sacrifice, to offer prayer to the Father.

Let me say it another way. Why is it that we cry at the end of Field of Dreams? We cry because we get to see the love of a Father and a Son being played out. We get to see Ray Kinsella finally playing catch with his dad. And, vicariously, we remember or long for that relationship ourselves.

The Mass is getting front row seats to Jesus and the Father playing catch. We get to be

part of Jesus and the Father having deep, late-night conversation. We get to witness and participate in the love of Father and Son exchanged. We participate sacramentally, saying “amen… and with your spirit… we lift them up to the Lord.” And yet, this isn’t a historical re-enactment that we are seeing, but God’s love made present to us here and now in a way we can see, touch, smell, taste, and feel.

That is the deep truth, the reality that is veiled in the Mass: we really get to see God face-to-face and call upon Him as our Dad, to ask Him to watch us and delight in us to tell Him that we love Him and hear Him say He loves us.

That is the one thing we are being invited to by Jesus – to sit at His feet and learn from Him. To receive His love and His grace through the Word of God and through the Eucharist. We need not be pious saints or learned doctors or melodious singers. There is need of only one thing… let us choose the better part.