What is necessary...

Let us attach ourselves faithfully to what is necessary. Each day, we have the certainty that Providence gives us what we need to go on. By going on, we know that we serve all. So, little by little, all the rest falls into place as a secondary thing and, disentangled from the thousand obsessions which harass us by our own fault, we will be able, in all the beauty which God wants to give us through His grace, to advance victoriously through the night, and triumph above everything which is not eternal destiny. ~Mother Marie des Douleurs in Joy Out Of Sorrow

So what exactly is necessary, we ask? Naturally, we all come up with different answers, depending on our life situations, our duties of state, our personalities and temperament, and so on. Thinking back to this past Sunday's gospel (Lk 10:38-42) about our Lord in the home of Martha and Mary, we see what is specifically necessary for us who follow Christ. "There is need of only one thing," Jesus tells Martha as she frets about Mary's choice to visit with Him rather than to help her in the kitchen. "Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her," Christ explains. This "better part" is what is absolutely necessary for us on a daily basis -- to do as Mary did, to gladly and humbly assume our proper position at the feet of our Master and listen to Him. "Learn from me," our Lord instructs us, and He alone possesses all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. But we can never fully learn until we stop all our hustle and bustle, both exterior and interior, and sit quietly at His feet with empty hands and hearts. Only then, as Mother Marie says, will everything else fall into place and we become "disentangled from the thousand obsessions which harass us by our own fault." Only then will we find the deep and lasting rest for which our weary hearts long.

For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel:
By waiting and by calm you shall be saved,
in quiet and in trust your strength lies.
But this you did not wish.
~Isaiah 30:15