Learning to Worship at the Feet of the Lord with Mary, sister of Martha

Let us come before the Lord, who is always present to us and rediscover in an age of empty self-idolatry, how to worship at the feet of the Lord.

The Woman whose story is told, even to this day as Jesus promised it would be, saw Jesus for who he is and was changed in this encounter with Him. It was not about her, it was about Jesus. That path of continual encounter with the Lord Jesus proceeds along a life of prayer, adoration, contemplation and love. There is no more fulfilling way to live. The posture of this woman before the Lord, her response to Beauty and Love Incarnate, illuminate the path. Let us come before the Lord, who is always present to us and rediscover in an age of empty self-idolatry, how to worship at the feet of the Lord.

CHESAPEAKE, VA (Catholic Online) - As we began the week called Holy in the Liturgical year, the Gospel text in the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church recounted the beautiful story of Mary, the sister of Martha, anointing the feet of Jesus with aromatic ointment.  (John 12:1-11)

Matthew, Mark and Luke tell of a similar encounter with another holy woman who encounters Jesus. (Lk. 7, Mark 14, Mt. 26) Mark and Matthew add that "wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her."

I am helping to fulfill their prophetic observation, standing on the shoulders of others who have done so throughout two millennia of Christianity, by recounting the beautiful act of worship demonstrated by these women. After all, they were encountering the Word Incarnate, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Worship is the only proper response.

This word encounter is the theological ground of Christian theology. The God we proclaim as Christians is not a theory, a first mover, of some aloof deity. Our God comes to encounter us, and invites us into an intimate communion with Him.

This word encounter is a key, a lens, what theologians call a hermeneutic, reminding all who bear the name Christian that Christianity is about an ongoing encounter with the Risen Jesus Christ who is ever present to those who have the eyes of living faith.

The Risen Jesus always comes to encounter us - in prayer, word, sacrament, one another, the poor, suffering, struggle - you name it. In all of these we can encounter Jesus, even if initially hidden, when we open our hearts to His Mercy and Love, by living faith.

This word encounter also informs any good ecclesiology, or theology of the Church. The Church is the place of encounter. It is not some-thing but Some-One, the Body of the Risen Jesus. Jesus is the head of His Body and the head and the Body cannot be separated. Through our participation in the mission of the Church we participate in His continuing redemptive mission.

This spirituality of encounter is a treasure for this barren age. The whole Church - and the world into which she is called - desperately needs this spirituality of encounter. Pope Francis repeatedly uses the word encounter in his spiritual reflections.

In trying to explain the emphasis, some observers point to his relationship with the ecclesial movement Communion and Liberation whose founder, Fr. Luigi Giussani, often used the word encounter, insisting that Christianity, at its heart, is an ongoing encounter with Jesus Christ.

In his first encyclical letter, the Light of Faith, which Pope Francis acknowledged was written with Pope Emeritus Benedict -  we find the word encounter woven throughout the text. That is because Pope Benedict also emphasized the centrality of an encounter with Jesus. He regularly taught that Christianity is not some-thing, but an encounter with Some-One, the One who lives no more to die and who is encountered through living faith. In the Light of Faith, we read:

"Faith is born of an encounter with the living God who calls us and reveals his love, a love which precedes us and upon which we can lean for security and for building our lives. Transformed by this love, we gain fresh vision, new eyes to see; we realize that it contains a great promise of fulfillment, and that a vision of the future opens up before us." (Light of Faith, #4)

The Woman whose story is told, even to this day as Jesus promised it would be, saw Jesus for who he is and was changed in this encounter with Him. It was not about her, it was about Jesus.

She was emptied of self and thereby able to be filled with Love. This encounter is capable of changing all men and women. It is the woman of prayer who teaches us of the absolute necessity of living faith and points us to the path to walk upon if we want to receive faith as gift and cultivate it as a fruit. She is a model for all who want to experience living faith as a light for real life, and find the freedom of lived love. .

That path of continual encounter with the Lord Jesus proceeds along a life of prayer, adoration, contemplation and love. There is no more fulfilling way to live. The posture of this woman before the Lord, her response to Beauty and Love Incarnate, illuminate the path. Let us come before the Lord, who is always present to us and rediscover in an age of empty self-idolatry, how to worship at the feet of the Lord.

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Deacon Keith A. Fournier is Founder and Chairman of Common Good Foundation and Common Good Alliance. A married Roman Catholic Deacon of the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia. He and his wife Laurine have five grown children and seven grandchildren, He is a human rights lawyer and public policy advocate who served as the first and founding Executive Director of the American Center for Law and Justice in the nineteen nineties. He has long been active at the intersection of faith and culture. He is a senior contributing writer to THE STREAM, a columnist for the Catholic News Agency and the Editor in Chief of Catholic Online.

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