Did you know?- that St Francis de Sales, Founder of the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary might have chosen St Martha as the congregation’s patron?
Among the questions to be settled in the early days of Francis and Jane’s fledgling institute was its name. Several possibilities had occurred to the bishop, including “Oblates of the Blessed Virgin” and “Daughters of Saint Martha,” settling on this name as early as 1607, 3 years before the foundation!
But the idea that kept coming to St. Francis de Sales was more along the lines of “Sisters of the Visitation.” By July 1, 1610, the Sisters were calling themselves “Religious of the Visitation of Holy Mary.”
Yet St Francis always retained his admiration of St Martha as well.
Today we observe the Memorial of St. Martha: model of hospitality and faithful disciple; patroness of housewives, waiters and waitresses.
In his Spiritual Conferences (IX, On Religious Modesty), Francis de Sales remarked:
“Inward modesty maintains the powers of our souls in tranquility and moderation, avoiding, as I have already said, curiosity of the understanding over which it chiefly exercises its control, retrenching also from our will its innumerable desires, and directing it simply to that one thing which Mary chose, and which shall not be taken from her: that is, the will to please God. Martha represents very well the want of control in the will, for she is too eager: she sets all the servants of the house to work; she goes hither and thither without pausing for a moment, so anxious is she to treat Our Lord well; and she seems to think that she will never have enough dishes prepared to entertain Him. In the same way, the will which is not restrained by moderation flits from one subject to another in order to stimulate itself to love God and to desire many means of serving Him, and yet, so many things are not needed. Better is it to cling to God like Mary, sitting at His feet, asking Him to give us His love, than to be thinking how and by what means we can acquire it…” (pp. 143-144)
Martha is a model of hospitality; Martha sets the standard of the lengths that one might go in welcoming another. Nevertheless, as we see in Martha’s interchange with Jesus – and about Mary – the love of hospitality can becomes – however unintentionally – a virtuous liability when we allow our enthusiasm for getting things right to become anxiety about making things perfect.
Indeed, we should imitate Martha in our efforts at welcoming others, i.e., doing our level best to make other feel ‘at home.’ However, in a spirit of inward modesty let us do our level best to avoid reeking havoc in our attempts to be hospitable. (source: Oblates of SFDS)