The One Thing Necessary

We tell ourselves we don’t have time to pray. Once life slows down, we’ll find the time. But life rarely slows down. And prayer, though we know it matters, is usually the first thing to get sidelined.

Why is that?

The Gospel That Answers the Question

“But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her.’” (Luke 10:41–42, RSVCE)

The scene is simple: two sisters, one room, one Lord. Martha moves while Mary listens. Jesus names what Martha cannot see: that her work has lost its center. When our service loses its object, it becomes agitation. Mary hasn’t abandoned her duty, she’s focused on its source.

The “one thing necessary” is the priority. It’s the steady gaze on Christ that gives meaning to our movement. But how do we maintain that gaze in the middle of ordinary life?

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The Lesson of Brother Lawrence

We wait for ideal conditions that never come. But holiness isn’t found in perfect schedules but in transformed attention. Brother Lawrence understood this better than most.

In seventeenth-century France, a lay Carmelite known as Brother Lawrence spent most of his life in a monastery kitchen. He wasn’t a theologian or a preacher. He scrubbed pots, baked bread, and mended shoes. Yet amid the clatter of work, he found what many fail to find.

Brother Lawrence never separated prayer from life. His way was not a set of steps but a continual returning of the heart. He believed that to love God in everything was simpler than it seemed. It was a matter of turning, again and again, toward His presence.

He wrote simply: “We should establish ourselves in a sense of God’s presence, by continually conversing with Him.”

For him, this conversation began in the morning and ran quietly through the day. When he worked in the kitchen, he found God there “as well as upon my knees at the Blessed Sacrament.” He spoke with God “freely and simply,” as one friend speaks with another.

His approach was to set a rhythm. He began each morning by offering his first moments to God. Throughout the day, he continued the conversation, whispering to God inwardly in every duty and interruption, not to gain a feeling but to stay in connection. When he forgot, he simply returned. “When I fail,” he said, “I acknowledge it, and I turn to Him with greater trust.” At night, he thanked God for His companionship through the day, confident that grace would do the rest.

This was the secret of his peace. The only effort required was to return to His continual presence. He once said that if we “knew how much He loves us, we would never spend an instant apart from Him.” When love orders the heart, even activity becomes rest.

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A Simple Examination

Lord, where did I rush ahead without You today?

Where did I fail to notice You waiting quietly beside me?

Teach me to carry Your presence into every moment whether ordinary or extraordinary.

Jesus, reorder my heart around Your presence.

Keep me faithful to the one thing necessary. You.

Amen.

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Sources:

The Holy Bible, RSVCE — Luke 10:41–42

Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God