The words occur often through the spiritual tradition of Christianity: Saints Mary and Martha. Unum necessarium. The one thing necessary was chosen by Mary and would not be taken away from her (Lk 10:42).

What is this “one thing necessary”?

To do God’s will. When some writers and saints answer contemplation, it all amounts to the same thing. Contemplation aims to do God’s will. In fact, that exactly what the transforming stages of contemplation, stripping us on sense and spiritual attachments to refocus our entire being on our God-Trinity, accomplish: we are freed up, made free, to swim in the interior freedom of God, as God moves freely in us.

We’d have no reason to suppose that Martha herself didn’t have this “one thing necessary”, except that she complained about her sister and indirectly spoke ill of her name (and this doesn’t appear to have been God’s will). Action is not incompatible with contemplation. The one thing necessary is not some sort of dichotomy. If we still experience a contrast between action and contemplation, it is not because we are not “finished” yet. The potter is still at work on his clay. For, in the final analysis, prayer and action must converge. The one thing necessary must appear less and less in pieces and more and more one.