Small talk is brutal.

I don’t like it at all.

And the worst form of small talk is when someone asks you very superficial questions about what you do for a job… and then, it inevitably happens:

They ask the most dreaded question of all:

“They keepin’ you busy?”

There it is.

The worst four word sentence in the English language.

“They keepin’ you busy?”

Underlying that question is literally no actual concern about what you are actually doing… only that you are doing SOMETHING… ANYTHING… and that you are continually DOING that vague something CONSTANTLY over the passage of time, in such a way that you would describe yourself as being…

Busy.

And let’s face it — we don’t want to admit to anyone that we ARE NOT BEING KEPT BUSY…

We actually like people to think we’re EXTREMELY busy, don’t we? For one thing, if you’re already super busy, then they are probably less likely to ask you do something else for them, which is often our undisclosed goal in most social interactions.

But we also want to say we’re BUSY, because… it makes us seem more useful. It almost justifies our own existence. If we’re not busy, then well… we’re sort of worthless.

And really, that’s what the world teaches us constantly: 

In order for you to be loved, and needed, and WANTED… first — you gotta make yourself useful. You have to serve some obvious function.

In other words: You have to do lots of STUFF… you need to have a FULL calendar! You need to be kept BUSY.

But that’s not how God sees you.

You don’t have to convince Him to love you or pay attention to you. He already does… no matter what.

We see this in action in the classic Gospel story we just heard: the story of Martha and Mary

Martha has, in many ways, fallen for the lie I just described — She is trying desperately to make herself useful for Jesus. She wants to justify her existence by becoming insanely BUSY… and when her sister Mary doesn’t look very BUSY at all, she starts complaining:

“LORD! Don’t you care??? Can’t you see that my sister isn’t being USEFUL at ALL? She’s left me to do all the serving by myself! Tell her, right now, to actually get up and DO something!”

Ya see… Martha assumes Mary is taking the easier path — the selfish path — “Look at her she’s just SITTING THERE while I do all the hard work!”

But here’s the deeper, and perhaps very surprising truth:

Listening to the Lord is actually much harder work than running around in the kitchen. It’s harder to sit still, and just be with the Lord.

Perhaps you already know this full well. 

Maybe you’ve tried going to Adoration, and you have knelt there in silence for oh… I don’t know… like 25 seconds, and then something began to happen. You started to fidget. You started to think of random things on your shopping list. You started feeling uncomfortable. You noticed your leg going numb. The fly zooming around the church started to get on your nerves… Boredom set in. 

And maybe you wondered to yourself: 

What am I even actually doing? Why am I so uncomfortable and unsettled all of a sudden? I don’t know what to do with myself! THIS IS REALLY HARD…

Maybe it even sort of feels like you’re just… WASTING YOUR TIME!

If you’ve ever felt that way in prayer, I would like to respond by saying:

“GOOD!”

Because that’s very normal! 

You’re not doing anything wrong. You are simply coming up against a basic fact of the spiritual life:

It is hard to simply “be” in the presence of God. 

It may seem like it should be the easiest thing in the world. …Just sitting there? Enjoying the Lord’s Presence like Mary did in the Gospel? And yet… for us fallen human beings, it’s actually sort of torturous at times…

As one Desert Father wisely put it: “Prayer is a battle to the last breath.”

When we come up against this fact — that just “being with Jesus” is a battle — the temptation then becomes….

TO GET BUSY!

We might even start to think that it’s actually really selfish and lazy for anyone to spend LOTS of time in prayer — when there’s so much USEFUL WORK still to be done!

If this though has ever passed your mind, I’d like to point to the living, breathing heart of the Church — they are invisible most of the time. Perhaps some people here haven’t seen one in a long time.

I’m talking about… Nuns. 

Religious sisters.

Young ladies — I’ve spoken recently in homilies about the importance for young single Catholic men to discern the priesthood… Well, I’m not gonna let you off the hook either!

Have you ever considered a religious vocation? Could you ever imagine yourself being a sister?

It’s such a beautiful life! 

And it’s NOT a lazy life!

Would anybody here dare accuse religious sisters of laziness or selfishness, just because they’ve chosen a life that is totally dedicated to sitting silently at the feet of the Master?

Of course not! 

For one thing, in my experience, the religious sisters I’ve met are usually the most efficient go-getters of all time. They seem to be able to JUST GET STUFF DONE. 

But they also get to spend insane amounts of time sitting quietly with the Lord…

And we need them doing that for us.

Their quiet, steady contemplation is what makes the rest of the Church’s work fruitful and effective!

Where would Martha be without Mary? 

How can priests reach souls, how can parents raise their kids, how can any of the active, visible members of the Church keep on going without all those hidden, cloistered members praying and sacrificing for us?

A Chinese bishop once said that 10 nuns praying would be of greater help to him than 20 missionaries preaching…

If that’s really true — then why are we still so reluctant to invest large amounts of time in prayer? Why are we so unconvinced that it really is far more effective than anything else we could possibly busy ourselves with?

If I had to guess, I think the reason is this:

We are believing some pretty big lies.

Lies like:

“I don’t have the luxury to spend time praying. I have too much on my plate.”

“Prayer is a waste of time.”

“Prayer doesn’t actually do anything… or change anything.”

“I’m not good at praying.”

“I’m not holy enough for God to listen to me.”

“I’m not holy enough for God to say anything to me.”

Or… my personal favorite:

“I’ll pray later, when I have time.”

But we never get around to having time for it, do we?

We have plenty of people working very hard in the kitchen… doing stuff. Anxiously trying to busy themselves doing this or that…

But I don’t think we have enough Christians sitting patiently at the feet of the Master, drinking in His Presence, longing for His Word of mercy, listening attentively to His silent Goodness, and allowing that to shape the rest of their lives.

So the question we need to ultimately ask is this:

Where am I basing my identity? 

Is it in external achievements? 

Is it in my visible, quantifiable activity? 

My work? 

My full calendar?

Or, do I base my identity in the quiet, firm, unchanging Presence of Jesus?

Do I trust that I am LOVED regardless of how productive I make people think I am…?

It’s high time for Christians to set to work — but the much harder, more fruitful work of just being with Jesus.

My favorite definition of prayer is: “Wasting time with the Lord.”

Do we have the courage to sit with Mary at the feet of Jesus… and just waste a bunch of time with him? Do we make time every single day to waste time with God?

When we do… we find that we really haven’t wasted any time at all.

In fact, we have chosen the better part. 

The one thing necessary.