You might remember that on one of His journeys, Jesus made a stop in a town where a woman named Martha lived. Martha, and her sister Mary, welcomed Jesus. Martha ran around the house trying to get things ready for Jesus. If you’ve ever seen a Southern woman trying to get the house ready for company, you can imagine what this scene looked like. Martha was trying to set the table, and get the stain out of the tablecloth, and sweep the flour off the floor, and make sure the cast-iron pan was at the right temperature to fry the chicken, and brew the iced tea, and clean dishes. And finally, in a tired outburst of hurry, Martha complains to Jesus that Mary, her sister, is not helping. Dear Mary is sitting next to Jesus, just listening to Him.

Now I’m sure Martha thought that Jesus would reprimand Mary for being so idle. Martha thought that by pointing out her sister’s seeming inactivity, Jesus would be impressed at her own work, but, “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.’” Note carefully what Jesus says to Martha: “There is need of only one thing.”  Jesus tells Martha that “Mary has chosen the better part.”

Now the insightful teenager, who wrote this question about whether prayer or active ministry was better, made a helpful comment at the end of the question. He said, “Don’t say both!” Oftentimes in sermons or commentaries, we are quick to point out that both prayer and active ministry are important, and, certainly, that is true. But the question is not whether both active ministry and prayer are important; the question is whether one is better. Happily for the questioner, the Lord Jesus Himself weighs in on this. Jesus says that Mary, who has been sitting quietly and listening to Him, “has chosen the better part.” For all the good that Martha was doing in preparing things, Mary was doing the one necessary thing: spending time with Jesus.

Sometimes, we overcomplicate prayer. Ultimately, it’s just spending time with Jesus — listening, speaking, loving, being loved. That’s what Mary was doing at the feet of Jesus. It’s in that process of listening, of loving, of speaking, of being loved that we discover who we really are. If you’ve ever been around someone you deeply love — and who deeply loves you — you know that it’s easy to be your real self. When we’re around someone we love,     we know who we really are.

In prayer, in time spent with Jesus, we come to know Who Jesus is and also who we are. And that knowledge — of Jesus and of ourselves — has to be the foundation of all we do. When we clearly know ourselves and know Jesus, we can navigate all the things we have to do with calm and serenity. But, when we’re not anchored in the life of Jesus, all the many things we have to do end up eating us alive, and we’re left exhausted. When Jesus is the center of our life, when Heaven is our top priority, we can manage all the things around us. But when we don’t have a clear priority of eternal happiness, all the things around us end up managing us!

What a waste it would be if I did every sort of good work and ministry, but did not give Jesus my soul! As the monk Jean-Baptiste Chautard says in his wonderful book The Soul of the Apostolate, “No human artistry, no matter how wonderful, can be compared to the action of Jesus on the soul.” And so, yes, prayer is better, is most important, and is foundational to our life. A life of prayer will certainly lead to good works and to ministry, but those works and ministry must flow from prayer. They will only be effective if we have a deep life of prayer because that’s where we come to know and love Jesus. Thus, perhaps we should let St. Paul, the patron of the Diocese of Birmingham, have the last word: “Pray without ceasing!”