In her poem “Making Peace,” Denise Levertov writes about the grammar and the syntax of peace. We might have to change the sentence of our lives to “have a feeling towards” peace. Further, she suggests that peace might appear if “we allowed long pauses.”
To allow a long pause in our day this is what this time of prayer is for. To allow the “sentence” of our day, all of our activity, our thoughts, our preoccupations to have a pause. A moment of silence before we continue with more subjects, activities, and objects to attend to.
This is the great invitation that Jesus makes to us today in this story of Mary and Martha. We can have a feeling towards peace, and the sentence of our day can be completed with his help. May his grace and peace fill this pause of ours.
—Christopher Staab, S.J. is a Jesuit scholastic of the Chicago-Detroit province. He is currently in his second year of theology studies at the Jesuit house of studies in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Chris previously taught at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, Chicago IL.