280. Martha and Mary
Saint Benedict Labre rightly rejects the cares of Martha and worldly tasks. The fight against filth is a stopgap measure; what we ought to do is separate it and cast it out once and for all, and that is the great task and the great mystery.
There too, one cannot serve two masters without great difficulty, and we must favour one at the expense of the other, but it is up to us to judge and to choose intelligently, not according to appearances, but according to the hidden reality.
I have been doing furniture removals for ten days, and it has allowed me to taste spiritual peace in a sweet exhaustion of the body and the spirit which is not unpleasant. It is true idleness that Christ denounced as a sin against the Spirit. What is hard and difficult is trying to be Martha and Mary at the same time. But if you know how to avoid mixing the filth and the light, everything goes much better.
