In the penultimate match-up of the First Round, two women square off with the winner taking on Harriet Tubman. Thérèse of Lisieux, the original flower child, takes on Martha of Bethany, Biblical disciple. Yesterday Gregory the Great defeated Martin of Tours in the Battle of the Bishops and will face Florence Li-Tim Oi in the next Round. We understand that, in an act of deferential concession, Martin then sliced his miter in half.
If you missed yesterday's release of the People's Edition of Monday Madness make sure you watch it today. Tim and Scott aren't in it -- we defer to the "little people" of Lent Madness. AKA some people who were with us in San Diego last week that were duped into finishing the statement "I love Lent Madness because..."
Thérèse of Lisieux
While experiencing nervous tremors as a young girl, Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897) believed that she saw a vision of the Virgin Mary and was healed. She described this to Carmelite nuns, whose questions filled her with self-doubt and caused her to believe, wrongly, that she had lied about it. Several years later, on Christmas Eve 1886, she had what she said was a “complete conversion” as love entered her heart and liberated her to serve others.
The next year she told her father about her desire to mark the first anniversary of that conversion by joining the Carmelite nuns before Christmas. He picked up a little white flower with its roots and gave it to her. He said that God had created it and cared for it. Thérèse, who would eventually become known as “The Little Flower,” believed that to be a metaphor for her own life and that she would be planted in different soil. Yet she was still considered too young to be planted in the soil of the Carmelite nuns.
Later that same year, on a pilgrimage to Rome, she knelt before Pope Leo XIII and asked him to allow her to enter that religious community. He blessed her but left the decision in the hands of its superiors. She stubbornly remained there and had to be removed from the room by the Swiss Guard. Finally, however, she was allowed to become a Carmelite postulant at the age of 15 and moved into a cloistered community in Lisieux, which is located in northwestern France. Thérèse made her religious profession there at the age of 17.
She finally had the life she wanted – a life dedicated to prayer. So it’s interesting to note that she frequently fell asleep while praying and was embarrassed that she couldn’t stay awake in chapel with her religious community. But she realized that parents love their children while they sleep just as much as they do when they’re awake. In the same way, she knew that God loved her.
Chapel presented other challenges too. One of the nuns made clicking noises in that setting that drove Thérèse nuts. She might have been playing with her rosary. She might have had bad dentures. Whatever the true cause, it was simply maddening to Thérèse. But Thérèse decided to make it into a kind of music and offer it as a prayer as she sat there in the presence of God.
Those are both examples of her “little way” of being a Christian. After Thérèse’s death from tuberculosis at the age of 24, her writings were collected and published as The Story of a Soul. That’s how the world came to know and love her.
Collect for Thérèse of Lisieux
O God, by whose grace Thérèse of Lisieux became, with the fire of your love, a burning and a shining light in your Church: Grant that we may be inflamed with the same spirit of love, and ever walk before you as children of light; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Martha of Bethany
Though Martha of Bethany is mentioned in only two places in Scripture (Luke 10:38-42, John 11-12), she has had a lasting impact, for good and ill, on our conception of the spiritual life. It is sometimes hard to remember that Martha is a person and not a type. But, as one commentator puts it, “She looks at us out of the pages, a curiously vivid personality; downright, honest, practical, unselfish” (Interpreter’s Bible 1952, Volume 8, p. 636).
Martha is a devoted sister, never mentioned except alongside one or both of her siblings, Mary and Lazarus. Whether Martha is the oldest in the family is uncertain. However, Luke makes it plain that Martha invites Jesus to her house for that fateful meal when Jesus takes her multitasking to task. “Tell my sister to come and help me,” Martha says. In reply, Jesus speaks to Martha’s inner state rather than the presenting issue: “you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.” Martha, who had sought to serve Jesus and wishes for Mary to do the same, is instead invited to be served.
John reports that when Jesus arrives at Bethany after the death of Lazarus, it is Martha who first goes out to greet him. They engage in a conversation in which Martha’s statement of Christ’s ministry rivals the Confession of Peter.
Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" She said to him, "Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world" (John 11:23-27).
Also like Peter, Martha has a habit of saying exactly what she’s thinking and keeping it real. As with Peter, Jesus treats this forthrightness with forthrightness. When Jesus tells those gathered to remove the stone from Lazarus’ tomb, it is Martha who points out Lazarus has been dead four days and smells pretty ripe. This earns her another ding from Jesus who says, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”
Martha seems to take these rebukes in stride, continuing in her faithful discipleship and love of her Lord. In the final mention of Martha in Scripture, John 12:2, Jesus again joins the beloved siblings for dinner. Lazarus is at table; Mary anoints Jesus’ feet with perfume. And Martha served.
Collect for Martha of Bethany
Generous God, whose Son Jesus Christ enjoyed the friendship and hospitality of Mary, Martha and Lazarus of Bethany: Open our hearts to love you, our ears to hear you, and our hands to welcome and serve you in others, through Jesus Christ our risen Lord; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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162 comments on “Therese of Lisieux vs. Martha of Bethany”
While I voted for Martha, tiny Theresa probably is walking hand in hand with Jesus while Martha is preparing the evening meal
I'm so sad that the woman who learned to pray THROUGH distractions is about to lose to the woman who gave in to the distractions. What a witness to those of us who struggle with focusing on prayer! Therese offers us a way through that toward the heart of God, while Martha offers us passive aggressive triangulating snark.
I mean, not that I don't love me some passive aggressive triangulating snark every now and then, but seriously....more often I need the reminder that it's possible to turn my distraction and worry INTO prayer.
I voted for Therese because she reminds me that there are many ways of serving God; some may seem small or obscure in human eyes, but they aren't minimal to God.
I voted for Therese because she reminds me that there are many ways of serving God; some may seem small or obscure in human eyes, but they aren't minimal to God.
I had to vote for "Sveti Mala Terezija" as she is known in the former Yugoslavia. My time as a voter registration supervisor in Bosnia some years ago took me to the village of Debeljaci where I passed by the ruined site of the church that had borne her name. A sad sight in a sad place.
Two lovely bios that gave me a lot to think about...
While I truly admire Therese's tenacity and willingness to heed her call, as well as her devotion in small things, the cloistered life is not so relate-able to me.
Today I am running my business from my home office so I can get all the laundry done, make a test batch of granola for my bakery, update the website, file a knee-high stack of papers, and get dinner started. As a young woman desperately trying to practice servant leadership for my employees, customers, family, community, and church I can easily relate to Martha's attempts to run her household, entertain her guests, and listen to her messiah. I struggle with meeting my responsibilities and obligations while also making myself STOP and listen to God.
I'm ashamed to admit that while I admire Martha, I'd never realized the significance of her statement of faith until today. My admiration has increased ten-fold.
And as someone who serves for a living, I have to vote for the patroness of waiters and waitresses. Martha for the win!
Kat, I'm with you all the way (and yours is oh such a long way). Like you, I never appreciated Martha's powerful statement of faith until today. I'm a newly-minted Martha fan, and not the only one, judging from the comments.
I've always wondered if Jesus rebuked Martha before or after he had enjoyed the meal she prepared for him and all his friends. For me, it's Martha all the way. The Little Flower struck me as being a little too precious, even when I was a young girl.
While "The Little Flower" is sweet, precious and certainly a wonderful example of "and a little child shall lead them", I have to go with Martha, who always seems to get the short end of the stick when it comes to respect and recognition of a truly remarkable care giver, who is also a spiritually enlightened soul pre-touched by the Holy Spirit.. before Peter had a clue...so to speak. Go Martha!!
Martha because I can certainly identify with her--even if on too many days I'm more a Mary. And she provides a dose of reality to the Gospel stories in which she plays a part; that's a real gift, especially as we move through Lent.
I have always been drawn to the way women in the gospel stories drew Jesus into deeper recognition of the truth of his ministry - from Mary at the wedding in Cana to the Canaanite woman and the crumbs under the table. I have always viewed Martha in this way. She modeled service, and I believe Christ learned as much from her as she did from him. God can be present in the multi-tasking as long as we are centered on the true Lord of all.
As much as Laura Toepfer made Martha into a real human being with great depth, I had to go with Therese. Partly because she was losing so heavily but mainly because she "bloomed where she [finally] was planted." I particularly appreciated her taking the "noisy nun" and turning the distraction into music and from thence into prayer.
Not sure if this is apropos, but a couple of days ago I came across the following about George Washington Carver (in The Secret Life Of Plants, Tompkins and Bird, pp. 156-57):
"Not long before Carver's death a visitor to his laboratory saw him reach out his long sensitive fingers to a little flower on his workbench. 'When I touch that flower,' he said rapturously, 'I am touching infinity. It existed long before there were human beings on the Earth and will continue to exist for millions of years to come. Through the flower, I talk to the Infinite, which is only a silent force. This is not a physical contact. It is not in the earthquake, wind or fire. It is in the invisible world. It is in that still small voice that calls up the fairies.'
"He suddenly stopped and after a moment of reflection smiled at his visitor. 'Many people know this instinctively, 'and none better than Tennyson when he wrote;
"Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little Flower--but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all and all,
I should know what God and man is."
That being said, I went with Martha. One thing that strikes me about the passage in the Fourth Gospel where she appears is that, although the "Marquee Event" seems to be the raising of Lazarus, when I actually read it, that almost seems--ancillary--to the very human drama presented. There's a bit of swagger--almost arrogance-- to Jesus when he first learns of the illness of Lazarus. Martha, with so few words that speak so much--brings it back down to earth and the harsh reality of death. There are probably no two words--no sentiment in the Bible or literature--that can match the simple "Jesus wept."
I believe (and have this on pretty good authority) that Jesus wept out of sheer frustration that his followers still did not understand that death here is merely the beginning of life eternal. Jesus wasn't weeping for Lazarus -- he raised him back to life.
Martha literally went toe to toe with Jesus...Who else would have had the nerve to stand there and say "If you had been here....." Dreamers dream and we get hungry and discover they forgot to even defrost the turkey...Martha probably rung it's neck, scalded and plucked and cooked it while you-know-who just sat in rapture at His feet. Y'all know who got my vote!
Today it is Terese who speaks to me: in the chaos of events in my life, she reminds me to seek and find God in the little things, and to offer (or try to!) annoyances to God.
Have to go with Martha as the first verger!
I was named for Therese in a time when she was a popular 'new saint'. I now realize that my mother identified with her, her mother also having died when she was young, and my mother also leaving her father whom she adored to come to another country- for her America, for Therese Carmel. Hearing about her through my childhood, I admired her and saw her as my life's guide, but later came to regard her as mentally questionable. Why didn't she speak her mind to the sister who kept splashing her with water in the laundry or made noise in the chapel? And then, as a senior adult, I read "The Story of a Soul", and I got her. She was passionately in love with God, and lived that love with every breath. I have made my apologies, and am resisting the urge to vote for her more than once to make up for my years of disdain for my wonderful namesake.
Two of my all-time favorites (Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross) were both Carmelites so I have to go with a fellow Carmelite - Therese of Lisieux.
After reading a lengthy article on Therese I was still wondering what she did to deserve such admiration and sainthood. Neither she nor Martha had any "wow" factor. I do wish I were able to tolerate clicking dentures and smacking gum better. That's certainly an accomplishment for Therese but not enough to win my vote. Martha is pretty much a minor player but she was able to voice her complaint to Jesus. Pondering Martha's story brings to mind Joan Crawford cast in the title role. I will vote for her based on her gumption. It probably doesn't matter because there are some pretty strong contestants who will crush either one.
both speak to the way that the pebbles in your shoe can do more to slow you down than the boulders. Martha continually reminds me to use the skills and gifts I have and to worry less about what others do or fail to do. So Martha!
When I have company I am always buzzing around and not enjoying my guests so I feel sympathy with & for Martha. Also I have a tendency to be too blunt or put my foot in my mouth, so the post citing the King James Bible's translation "he stinketh" resonated. On the other hand I have been known to fall asleep while praying. It's just a tough choice - but Martha is so REAL.
Ah, beloved sisters and brothers, you've been led astray by that sexist little squib in Luke that the patrons of Mother Church chose to sell you on Mary: the woman's place is to sit in silence...
Double insult! I invite you to read the entire 11th chapter of John. In this it is obvious that the house in Bethany was a safe house for Jesus and his troop when he was wazzed out with events in Jerusalem, a few miles a way. Martha and Mary hosted organizing suppers - what do you think is going on in that scene? - and were central to Jesus mission: It was to Martha that Jesus first revealed himself as the Messiah.
Of course He wanted Martha to sit down and be his disciple! Supper was great, but hey! Women are to be disciples, too! The community organizing, the suppers, the safe house... all have to be a consequence of being a disciple, not a substitute! So ease yourself, Sister, and hear what I have to say. George, give Martha your seat.
Today's match clearly separates Episcopalians and RCs. The Little Flower is a much beloved and popular RC saint, many girls were named after her or chose her name at Confirmation. She would win in a landslide among Catholics. Just when I was starting to think we aren't so different after all....
The story of Jesus' visit to Martha and Mary's house is my favorite Gospel story. I identify with Martha. Stuff needs to be done, so do it. So simple. And the reasonable reaction, "Lord, tell my sister to get of her duff and give me a hand with all this pottery!" Sweet and flowery is nice, but honest and direct gets my attention every time.
I visited the abbey in France where Therese lived - they said when she died that rosepetals came down from the sky - I was terribly moved. I've been a Martha all my life, who longed to be a Therese - the body of Christ needs us both (but I voted for Therese)
hard choice. But love Martha's outspokenness in an era and culture in which women were supposed to be quiet. She had the courage to express what she felt to Jesus and the steadfastness to accept his correction: pretty good way to observe Lent I'd say.
Therese whomped the church's rigid ideas of salvation (in the age of strict Jansenism) with the notion that Jesus loved us, poured out grace on us when we didn't have a deserving bone in our bodies, and took all the little annoying events in life to think of herself as an instrument Jesus' love. She was a strong, gritty young thing, made even more lovable because she asked for eclairs as a treat just before her gory death. Love her and have loved her since childhood.! Go Little Terry!
I might have to get out a coin to flip... This is hard! I had never heard of Therese, and I don't know how to put those funny little marks above her name, so thank you, LM, for helping me learn something today!
Now, to decide...
I also wanted to be like The Little Flower when I was young. I do agree that many Roman Catholics would choose her over Martha...I like Martha too though.
Martha for me. It's funny that when I read the two descriptions I thought to myself "you have to be Roman Catholic to truly appreciate Therese." Then I read the comments and I see I was not alone! I never saw what Therese did to deserve sainthood, not that that took away anything from her model of devotion. I was always a bit suspicious that she was a made a saint to recruit young women women to join convents. This is no reflection on her goodness and sweetness, just her importance.
I agree with Beth that Therese's bio did not bring her to life or really hit home what her contributions to the Kingdom were, and why she is a saint. As an Episcopalian who dearly loves her (along with Teresa of Avila from...what, 350 years earlier and in Spain?) Martha is wonderful, but Therese opened my eyes.