My brothers and sisters in Christ,
In today’s Gospel from Luke chapter 10, we meet two familiar figures: Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus, who welcome Jesus into their home. This brief but profound scene is often understood as a very simple lesson about work versus prayer, or action versus contemplation. But today, I want to reflect on it through the lens of Cistercian hospitality—a hospitality rooted not just in service, but in silence, listening, and the reverent reception of Christ Himself.
Jesus enters the home, and Martha, ever practical, springs into action. She prepares, serves, bustles about, as any gracious host would. Her intentions are good. In fact, they’re admirable. Many of us would do the same. And yet, when she complains that Mary isn’t helping, Jesus gently rebukes her: “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
The “one thing necessary.” What is it?
It is presence. It is attentiveness to the Guest. It is listening to Christ.
In the Cistercian tradition, hospitality is not just about feeding the hungry or offering a bed for the night. It is about welcoming Christ in every guest, as St Benedict says: “Let all guests who arrive be received like Christ.” But more than that, the Cistercian monastery—with its silence, its rhythm of prayer, its spacious stillness—is designed to help the guest not just feel looked after, but to meet Christ in that very stillness.
You see, the Cistercian monk doesn’t serve like Martha or sit like Mary in the worldly sense. He does both, but always in a posture of humility and listening. The cloister is a space of ordered simplicity, where the soul can breathe and where hospitality becomes a means of drawing both monk and guest into deeper communion with the Word.
Mary, in today’s Gospel, isn’t lazy or negligent. She recognises who is in her home. She sees that the Lord Himself is speaking, and she sits at His feet, listening—not distracted by the many, but focused on the one. That is Cistercian hospitality at its heart: to make space for Christ, to receive the Guest not merely with food or bedsheets, but with a heart that says, like Samuel, “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.”
We might ask ourselves: How often do we become like Martha? Not in her kindness, but in her anxiety, her distraction, her insistence that the good she’s doing is more important than simply being with the Lord?
We live in a busy world. Even our churches can become places of activity rather than adoration. We may be generous, hospitable, always giving—but are we making space for silence? Are we letting the Guest speak?
Traditional Cistercian life teaches us that true hospitality requires interior stillness. It demands that we be present—not just to our duties, but to the Divine. And for that, we need to be quiet, to be watchful, to be attentive to the movement of God.
So, dear friends, whether you are a monk, a priest, a parent, or a student, or whoever you are —learn from Mary. Yes, be generous. Yes, be hospitable like Martha. But above all, make space for Christ to speak. In your homes, your prayers, your hearts—be still enough to listen. For that is the better part. And it will not be taken from you.
Amen.