What does it mean to choose “the better part,” and why is being busy with good works not the whole truth of Christian life? In a biblical reflection published by Radio Mir Međugorje on October 6, 2026, Fra Tomislav Pervan considers Jesus’ encounter with Mary and Martha from Luke’s Gospel (Lk 10:38–42). At the heart of his interpretation is the relationship between listening and action: he stresses that Christian action should grow out of a person’s inner life and connection with God. For years, Pervan has reflected on the Gospel in the daily radio segment “Biblical Message of the Day.”
The Gospel: “There is need of only one thing”
In the passage as published, Martha welcomes Jesus into her home, while her sister Mary sits at the Lord’s feet and listens to his word. Martha, entirely occupied with serving, comes to Jesus with a complaint: “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” Jesus answers her: “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
Pervan places the familiar episode in the home of the sisters Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus in Bethany, near Jerusalem. He describes them as friends whom Jesus was glad to visit and who welcomed him as a dear guest, especially during the annual pilgrimages to the Temple and Jerusalem. This setting of friendship matters to his interpretation: Martha is trying to give the best possible welcome to someone dear to her, but Jesus’ visit also raises the question of personal encounter, not merely serving well.
Action is the fruit of inner growth
The author notes that the episode of the two sisters is preceded by the passage about the Good Samaritan. He bandaged the wounds of the man who had fallen among robbers and paid for his care, showing himself to be a true lover of his neighbor. One might conclude from this that Christian life is primarily active, responsible service. Pervan does not reject this understanding, but warns that it is only half the truth. Christianity reduced exclusively to action remains a half-truth, and half-truths, he writes, can become untruth and falsehood.
He finds a complete answer in the inner maturation of the person. According to Pervan, right Christian action is the fruit of a person’s being, just as grapes are the fruit of the vine, the soil, and all the conditions that allow the cluster to ripen. The fruit cannot be separated from the life from which it grows. That is why he speaks of organic growth: a person needs to grow inwardly so that their actions express who they truly are, rather than being merely a series of obligations fulfilled outwardly.
Moral and ethical action, Pervan continues, cannot be forced. In this context, he contrasts Rousseau’s idea that human beings are good by nature with Hobbes’s saying that “man is a wolf to man.” Christianity, he stresses, recognizes evil and sin, so moral action must be cultivated. It must grow out of the wholeness of the person, their bond with God and their union with him. The question is how to become a person in whom being and doing, existence and action—*esse* and *agere*—are joined.
Pervan finds the answer in Jesus’ teaching on prayer, to which the encounter with Martha and Mary serves as an introduction. He compares Jesus’ ability to reveal what matters in an ordinary episode of life to the work of an artist: a poet shapes a poem from a simple image, while a musician or painter makes a masterpiece from an ordinary subject. For someone with something to say to their contemporaries and future generations, nothing is too small or insignificant. In the same way, according to the author’s interpretation, Jesus reaches the very heart of the matter through an everyday encounter.
Pervan also sees in Jesus’ visit to the sisters a freedom from social taboos. “For Jesus there are no taboo subjects or taboo people,” he writes, reflecting on the attitudes of scribes, Pharisees, and society toward women at the time. The possibility of scandal over such a visit does not stop Jesus. The author compares this visit with Jesus’ visit to Zacchaeus: in his spiritual interpretation, entering the home brings salvation, peace, and healing.
Martha wants to give a dear guest the best welcome
Pervan views Martha’s busyness in the context of Eastern hospitality, in which a guest is regarded almost as an angel of God. As the woman of the house, she takes on the responsibility of welcoming an extraordinary and dear guest as well as she can. Jesus is not in her home every day, so she wants to fulfill her task completely, so that both she and her guest will be satisfied. In this effort, her concern with serving and household tasks is understandable.
But are household and cooking skills, culinary expertise, and delicacies the reason Jesus came? Pervan’s answer is no. He offers Martha’s possible tendency toward perfectionism from childhood as a supposition, not as information found in the Gospel. The burden of the household rests on her, and she would like Jesus to entrust some of the work to her sister as well. The author explains the name Martha as meaning “mistress of the house,” connecting it with the root “mar,” meaning master or mistress. Her complaint thus becomes a starting point for a lesson about what goes beyond obligations neatly fulfilled.
Pervan conveys the meaning of Jesus’ answer through an imagined address to Martha. This is not an additional Gospel quotation, but the author’s paraphrase: “I am not interested in your cakes and dishes, in your cooking or culinary skills, in your delicacies. I care about you. Your heart.” He develops the thought further: “I do not need your services; I am seeking you, as I visit you and your home.” In his interpretation, Jesus is not asking for perfectionism, but for the person and her heart, directing Martha toward her sister, who has chosen the better part.
Mary’s listening is not passivity
According to Pervan’s interpretation, Mary takes the position of a disciple: like a prophetic disciple or a rabbi’s disciple, she sits at the Teacher’s feet, listens to the word, and receives it in her heart. She does not simply accept the words spoken, but opens herself to Jesus’ person and heart. In connection with this image, the author cites Paul’s testimony in the Acts of the Apostles that he was “educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers” (Acts 22:3). He thus connects Mary’s posture with the listening that forms a disciple.
Pervan stresses that such listening is not passive. Mary is an example of receiving God’s word, storing it in a good and noble heart, and bearing fruit. Listening includes pondering and reflection, but also openness to action, because Jesus’ words are received as God’s words. Martha’s complaint interrupts precisely this kind of encounter. The author acknowledges that, looking at her work and her burden, we might agree with her, but he links discipleship to a deeper learning of the heart. He sums up this thought in the words: “Heart speaks to heart.”
Pervan connects Jesus’ response about many worries with the image of a seed that fell among thorns. Worries and anxieties can choke it, leaving it fruitless. Similarly, turmoil and nervousness can stifle a good intention while it is still only a seed. In this comparison, Martha’s behavior shows how being preoccupied with many things can make it harder to focus on what matters. The author therefore reads the call to recognize the one necessary thing as directing attention to the heart of the encounter with Jesus.
Pervan describes Jesus as an itinerant preacher who needs very little and is content with the bare necessities. In this reading of the Gospel, Martha should take a breather, rest, and sit at his feet like her sister. The author brings the invitation closer to contemporary life with the expression “slow down”—ease off the gas pedal. Her task at that moment is not to make even greater efforts to serve, but to pause and open herself to the presence of the guest who is speaking to her.
What is the “one thing necessary”?
Pervan interprets the “one thing necessary” as openness to the salvation offered in the person of Jesus. God himself visits the human person, so what is needed is to become an ear, open one’s heart to Jesus, and allow his presence to fill it. In this interpretation, Mary’s part, which will not be taken away from her, is an inheritance and a gift of the present moment, but also of eternity. The author calls her an heir to eternal life: the other, overlooked sister becomes the first heir to Jesus’ promises.
Pervan describes Mary’s receptivity through the images of an open flower, a chalice, and a beautiful vessel. Mary has made herself inwardly free for the Lord, ready to receive his word and to live with it and from it. In this way, the author returns to the connection between listening and action: the word is received in the heart so that life may grow from it. In his reflection, the “better part” is not simply a moment of rest from work, but an openness that shapes a person inwardly.
He then connects the episode with the commandment to love the Lord God with all one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength (cf. Lk 10:27). Pervan considers the encounter with Martha and Mary to show the practical effect of this commandment in Christian life. Love of God and listening to his word are not separate from life, but fully connected with it. As the author sums it up, Jesus asks for the “totality of the person”—the surrender of the whole human being.
Pervan also calls Mary’s attentiveness silent prayer. She becomes all listening, and in this openness a person grows beyond themselves and attains inner unity. The author compares the soul to a tuned piano or harp on which God plays his eternal melodies. In this sense, he connects the sequence of Luke’s passages: after the episode with the two sisters comes Jesus’ teaching about true prayer. In response to the question of how to pray, Jesus teaches his disciples—and through them, the faithful—the Lord’s Prayer.
The unity of action and contemplation
At the end of his reflection, Pervan points to Jesus as an example of the connection between outward action and the inner life. He compares thirty years of solitude and silence in Nazareth with fewer than three years of public ministry. He notes that even during his public ministry, Jesus often withdrew to pray and be alone, and offers the spiritual judgment that Jesus prayed more than he acted. In him, Pervan sees a unity of action and contemplation, of what is outward and inward, which is also a call to the faithful. He concludes with the message that the spirit and the spiritual endure for eternity.
Fra Tomislav Pervan is the author of numerous books of theological reflection. He lives and works in Medjugorje as the spiritual director of the sisters and hears confessions daily in the Medjugorje confessional. He is a former Medjugorje parish priest and former provincial of the Herzegovina Franciscan Province. Alongside his daily Gospel reflections on Radio Mir Međugorje, he has for years written for *Naša ognjišta*, *Katolički tjednik*, *Glasnik mira*, MOVIS, and other magazines and websites.
