On being a claustral sister type

“I’m giving up chocolate starting tomorrow,” my 10 year old said a few days ago, plopping his last Valentine candy into his mouth. Someone had given each kid in the class a little mini heart box of chocolate. He gave me the empty box.


I have to admit that so far this Lent, I’ve been telling myself the same thing: “I’m going to bed early tomorrow.” “I’m going to have some silent time tomorrow.”


My sister asked me a couple days ago how my Lent was going. I’d like to have had a more enthusiastic reply, but a week into the season, and I’m still getting started. At Mass last Tuesday the opening prayer had the line “Through the discipline of Lent, help us grow in our desire for you”… exactly what I told my dear sister was not happening to me.


Inspired by reading In this House of Brede, I intended to use Lent as a time to be grow in a Mary spirit. My sister pointed out my tendency to scurry in another blog post. Ironically, I don’t think it was a characteristic I had in youth. In some ways, my sister and I have traded skins: In childhood, she was the socializing cheerleader, on the go, on the phone. Her side of the room was tidier than mine. I sat in a chair and read. I had a friend who would come over supposedly to play with me, but who always ended up playing Barbies with her. But sometime after I got married and had a baby, I started looking for friendship. I was living 1000 miles from my family and the friends I had grown up with, and I had no idea what to do with a baby, except read him stories and walk him to the park. Where I met friends.  My days started to fill.

My Martha self emerged even more because I married someone who was used to tidiness, so out of love for him I began to fold t-shirts in thirds, to sweep (nearly) daily, and to make an attempt at keeping yogurts on one side of the fridge, eggs and bread on the other, instead of jamming all the groceries in there together. I've never been, and am still not, a perfectionist when it comes to housework, but he's helped me appreciate how easy it is to find things when you put them where they belong.

Having multiple kids cemented the development of Martha tendencies. Out of love for them I spend more time on preparing food, applying stain remover, shuttling them around.  There just isn't much time in the day left for contemplation after keeping the kids clothed, fed, and out of the emergency room.  But somebody has to do those things, I want to cry to defend my scurrying ways, especially at family gatherings when everyone would prefer to sit and talk. As Mrs. Darwin pointed out, even the contemplatives had the claustral sisters to help with the chores. 

The other night I had a dream, a nightmare, that my landlords, a husband and wife, showed up at the door demanding to be let in. The husband said “I was here the other day and in all my 30 years of being a landlord I have never seen so many dishes left in the sink! What a mess!”


“Wait, wait!” I cried. I can explain! I ran in the house and threw all the junk into closets and under bedcovers and tried to explain why this was just an anomaly. But they still evicted us and threw all our belongings in the trash. A Martha anxiety dream if ever there was one.

This week and next, my parents are in the Holy Land. They began their pilgrimage in Cana, where they renewed their wedding vows, they renewed their baptismal vows at the river Jordan. They took part in Mass at the Manger Altar at the Church of the Nativity, and will end their trip in Jerusalem with a Lenten walking of the way of the cross.

But today they are in Bethany, where Jesus’ good friends lived, and they will visit the home of Mary Martha and Lazarus. Some Martha set this trip up for them, so that they can pray and wonder at the places where Jesus walked.

After thinking about Mary and Martha all week, I finally took another look at the passage:

 "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." (cf Luke 10:41-42)

In his gentle reprimand to Martha, Jesus doesn't tell her to stop working but to stop worrying and fretting. To not be upset by Mary's good example, but to imitate it.  Perhaps Jesus would have said nothing if Mary had gone about serving Him and the apostles quietly and with a smile. She probably would've heard every word He said, if she hadn't been listening to the voice inside her that was jealous of Mary and tired of trying to make everything perfect.

I shouldn't be upset by the fact that I have a to do list, but rather I should use the time I have well, to be thankful that I have so many people who need me, to not be upset if things aren't the way I would like them to be, to quiet the voices of self-doubt and criticism so that I can hear Christ, and find time to listen a little. Maybe learning to serve others is the antidote I needed for the self-absorption of my youth.  Simone Weil has an essay about learning the habit of attention when studying, so as to transform it into prayer.  The same goes for chores, as Kathleen Norris writes in "Quotidian Mysteries." And I'm sure those claustral sisters were at least trying to pray always as they did the chores for their contemplative sisters.