Tomorrow, Friday, July 29th,
is the feast of St. Martha , exactly a week after her sister, St. Mary
Magdalen. St. Martha is the patron Saint
of cooks and housewives, as well as single women, butlers, dieticians, servers,
innkeepers, and travelers. Not much is
known about her, except what we are told in the Gospel and tradition, and as
she is a special patroness for most of us, we’re going to focus on her today.
The
first time we meet Martha is in the Gospel of Luke. Martha was not only the sister of St. Mary
Magdalen, but also the sister of Lazarus, whom Our Lord raised from the
dead. They were friends of Christ, and
it seems He often came to visit them. On
one of these visits, Mary sat at Christ’s feet, listening to all that He said,
while Martha took care of the serving all by herself. Martha was none too pleased with this
arrangement. She brought the matter to
Our Lord’s attention, asking Him to speak to Mary and tell her to help her
sister. Our Lord’s answer, while
directed at Martha, is truly for all of us: “Martha, Martha, thou art careful
and art troubled about many things. But
one thing is necessary. Mary hath chosen
the best part, which shall not be taken away from her.” It’s a beautiful reminder that we cannot get
caught up in our household duties to such an extent that we forget that our
duty to God comes first.
St.
John’s Gospel tells of the death and resurrection of Lazarus, and Martha’s part
in that great event. Here we see
Martha’s great faith in Our Lord. When
Martha hears that Christ has come, she immediately goes to greet Him, and says,
“Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But now also I know that whatsoever thou wilt
ask of God, God will give it thee.” As
she speaks with Our Lord, she also affirms her faith that her brother will rise
again “in the resurrection of the last day,” and that Jesus is “Christ, the Son
of the living God, who art come into the world.” She had just lost her brother, and yet her
faith was unshaken. That faith was
reaffirmed when Christ raised Lazarus from the dead.
The
last time Martha is mentioned in the Gospel is in the next chapter, when Christ
and his apostles are having dinner at the house of Mary, Martha and
Lazarus. Very simple, St. John states,
“They made him a supper there, and Martha served.” She quietly and unobtrusively went about her
work, and I think we can be sure that she did it with a loving
disposition.
This is
what we know of her according to the Gospels, but there is more that we know of
her from tradition. One version of the
story is that Lazarus, Mary and Martha were forced to flee from persecution
after St. Stephen was martyred and they moved to Cyprus, and they died after
many years of preaching the Gospel there.
Another tradition holds that they and others were put into a ship
without sail, oars or rudder, and it was miraculously conducted to Marseilles,
on the southern coast of France. There
the three of them began converting the pagans they encountered. The story goes that in a village in the south
of France, Tarascon, St. Martha defeated a dragon that was terrorizing the
people there. She is said to have
sprinkled it with holy water, shown it the Cross, and this incapacitated the
dragon so that the people could kill it.
Sts. Mary and Martha lived for the rest of their lives in that village
and formed a religious community there.
St. Martha’s tomb is in one of the churches of Tarascon.
May St.
Martha encourage us by her example to be cheerful home-makers, who are able to
fulfill our tasks to God first, and not to be troubled about many things, and to
slay those dragons!
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