Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.” And Jesus answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38–42)

What was Mary enjoying while she was listening? What was she eating? What was she drinking? Do you know? Let us ask the Lord, who keeps such a splendid table for his own people, let us ask him. “Blessed,” He says, “are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, because they shall be satisfied.” It was from this wellspring, from this storehouse of righteousness, that Mary, seated at the Lord’s feet, was in her hunger receiving some crumbs. You see, the Lord was giving her then as much as she was able to take. But as for the whole amount, which he was going to give at His table of the future, not even the disciples, not even the apostles themselves, were able to take in at the time when He said to them, “I still have many things to say to you, but you are unable to hear them now.”

So what, as I was saying, was Mary enjoying? What was she drinking so avidly with the mouth of her heart? Righteousness, truth. She was enjoying truth. In her hunger she was eating truth, drinking it in her thirst. She was being refreshed, and what she was being fed from was not diminishing. What was Mary enjoying, what was she eating? I am persistent on this point, because I am enjoying it too. I will venture to say that she was eating the One she was listening to. I mean, if she was eating truth, didn't He Himself say, “I am the truth”? What more can I say? He was being eaten, because he was the Bread. “I,” He said, “am the bread who came down from heaven.” This is the bread which nourishes and never diminishes.

Augustine, Sermon 179.5