38As they went on their way, he entered into a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. 39She had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard his word. 40But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she came up to him, and said, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister left me to serve alone? Ask her therefore to help me.” 41Jesus answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, 42but one thing is needed. Mary has chosen the good part, which will not be taken away from her.”
Martha is doing something good, welcoming a guest and getting a meal ready, yet she ends up frazzled and resentful. The story does not scold work, but it notices how easily tasks crowd out the person in front of us. Sunday is a fitting day to ask what one thing deserves our full attention, and to let a few other things wait. Steadiness often begins with choosing well rather than doing more.
Call good sense to your aid against difficulties: it is possible to soften what is harsh, to widen what is too narrow, and to make heavy burdens press less severely upon one who bears them skillfully. Moreover, we ought not to allow our desires to wander far afield, but we must make them confine themselves to our immediate neighbourhood, since they will not endure to be altogether locked up. We must leave alone things which either cannot come to pass or can only be effected with difficulty, and follow after such things as are near at hand and within reach of our hopes, always remembering that all things are equally unimportant, and that though they have a different outward appearance, they are all alike empty within. Neither let us envy those who are in high places: the heights which look lofty to us are steep and rugged.
Aubrey Stewart, 1900
Seneca wrote this essay in the first century AD as a reply to his younger friend Annaeus Serenus, who said he was unsettled and dissatisfied with himself. It survives in the manuscript collection of Seneca's "Dialogues", and Aubrey Stewart's 1900 English version appeared in the Bohn's Library series.
Seneca doesn't tell us to want nothing. He tells us to keep our wants close enough to reach. Much of our restlessness comes from chasing things that are far off or unlikely, and from assuming other people's high positions must feel as good as they look. A job, a house or a reputation seen from a distance rarely shows its steep and rugged side. Today, notice which of your wishes are within reach, and give your effort to those.
PracticeWrite down three things you want right now. Mark each one as near (you could act on it this week) or far (it depends on luck or on other people). Do one small, concrete thing toward a near item before tonight, and let the far ones rest for the day.
In January 897 a pope convicted his dead predecessor, and the aftermath showed how much damage a verdict on the dead could do.
In January 897, in the Lateran Basilica in Rome, the body of Pope Formosus sat propped on a throne. He had been dead about nine months. Pope Stephen VI had ordered him dug up and tried. A deacon was assigned to speak for the corpse, since the accused could not answer for himself.
The charges were technical. Formosus was accused of perjury and of acting as a bishop after being reduced to lay status. He was also accused of breaking canon law by leaving his see at Porto to take the see of Rome. The tenth-century writer Liutprand of Cremona has Stephen shouting questions at the body. Historians suspect Liutprand embellished the scene, but the outline is secure. The corpse was found guilty and stripped of its vestments. Three fingers of its right hand, the ones used to bless, were cut off. Everything Formosus had done as pope was declared void.
The politics behind it were local. Formosus had backed Arnulf of Carinthia against the Spoleto family, and the Spoletans had just regained influence in Rome. The verdict also created a practical problem. Stephen himself had been made a bishop by Formosus, so voiding Formosus's ordinations put Stephen's own standing in doubt, along with that of many clergy.
Rome turned against Stephen. The body was reportedly thrown into the Tiber, and rumor said it had worked miracles. A mob deposed Stephen and jailed him, and he was strangled that summer. In December 897 Pope Theodore II annulled the trial and had Formosus reburied in St. Peter's in full vestments. In 904 Sergius III, who had backed Stephen, reversed that decision again.
RememberThe Cadaver Synod was meant to erase a dead pope but ended in his rehabilitation, Stephen VI's strangling, and years of reversals over whose ordinations counted.
Read nextMichael Edward Moore, "The Attack on Pope Formosus: Papal History in an Age of Resentment (875-897)"