Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus

Disciples of the Lord

Feast Day

July 29

Born

Bethany, Judea

The Memorial of Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus honors the three siblings of Bethany, the village two miles east of Jerusalem on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, presented in the Gospels as friends of Jesus and as a privileged household of his earthly ministry. Saint John tells us, Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus (John 11:5).

Martha is the figure of active service: she received the Lord into her house at the meal at Bethany, was busy about much serving (Luke 10:38-42), and was rebuked, gently, for being anxious and troubled about many things, while one thing alone is needful, the better part chosen by Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. After the death of her brother, Martha made one of the New Testament's central professions of faith: Yes, Lord; I have believed that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world (John 11:27), the parallel in John's Gospel to Peter's confession at Caesarea Philippi.

Mary of Bethany sat at the Master's feet (Luke 10:39, the disciple's posture) and anointed his feet at the supper six days before the Passover, in the home of Simon the leper, with a pound of costly nard and wiped them with her hair, an act Christ interpreted as anticipating his burial (John 12:1-8, Matthew 26:6-13, Mark 14:3-9), where his praise of her, Wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her, has been fulfilled.

Lazarus is the friend whom Jesus raised from the dead on the fourth day after his burial (John 11), the seventh and climactic sign of the Fourth Gospel and the proximate cause of the chief priests' decision to put Jesus to death. The risen Lazarus dined with Jesus at Bethany six days before the Passover (John 12:1-2). Christian tradition (Eusebius, Saint Epiphanius) holds that he subsequently became the first bishop of Kition (Larnaca) on Cyprus.

The Roman liturgy formerly observed only the Memorial of Saint Martha on July 29; by Decree of the Congregation for Divine Worship of January 26, 2021, Pope Francis added Mary and Lazarus to the Memorial. The decree, signed by Cardinal Robert Sarah and Archbishop Arthur Roche, notes the new biblical scholarship distinguishing Mary of Bethany from Mary Magdalene and from the anonymous penitent of Luke 7, and seeks to reflect the household of Bethany as a single Gospel image of Christian discipleship.