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Today, July 29, We Celebrate Sts. Martha, Mary, and Lazarus

"Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus" (John 11:5).

Sts. Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were three siblings living in the town of Bethany outside of Jerusalem during the time of Christ. Pope Francis added this memorial to the General Roman Calendar on 2 February 2021, giving the three siblings the combined feast day of July 29, previously the memorial of St. Martha. As an obligatory memorial, it must be observed.

According to the Decree of the new memorial from the Congregation for Divine Worship, the Holy Father included the three saints in the General Roman Calendar “considering the important evangelical witness they offered in welcoming the Lord Jesus into their home, in listening to him attentively, in believing that he is the resurrection and the life.”

While the memorial of St. Martha was included in the General Roman Calendar before the Second Vatican Council, that of St. Lazarus and St. Mary had been originally left off due to uncertainty about the identity of Mary Magdalene. These uncertainties “have been resolved in recent studies and times,” Pope Francis’ Decree indicated, adding that Mary and Lazarus are already commemorated on July 29 in the Roman Martyrology, the Church’s official catalog of martyrs and saints.

The Decree that the then Prefect of the Divine Worship congregation, Robert Cardinal Sarah, signed, states that “in the household of Bethany the Lord Jesus experienced the family spirit and friendship of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, and for this reason, the Gospel of John states that he loved them.”

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“Martha generously offered him hospitality, Mary listened attentively to his words and Lazarus promptly emerged from the tomb at the command of the One who humiliated death,” the decree further states.

Saint Martha is mentioned in three Gospel passages: Luke 10:38-42, John 11:1-53, and John 12:1-9, and the type of friendship between her and her siblings, Mary and Lazarus, with the Lord Jesus is evident in these passages.

In the gospel of Luke, Martha receives Jesus into her home and worries herself with serving Him, a worry that her sister Mary, who sat beside the Lord's feet "listening to Him speak," doesn't share. Her complaint that her sister is not helping her serve draws a reply from the Lord who says to her, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her."

The overanxiousness she displays in serving is put into the right context by Jesus who emphasizes the importance of contemplating Him before all things.

Yet she is seen next in John, outside the tomb of her brother Lazarus who had died four days earlier, as the one who receives the Revelation from the Lord that "I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die."

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When asked by the Lord if she believed this, Martha said to Him, "Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world," displaying her great faith which is confirmed by Jesus' subsequent raising of her brother Lazarus from the grave.

In the third and last instance, we see Martha, again in John, at a house in Bethany where Jesus was reclining at table with her brother Lazarus after he had raised him from the dead. During dinner, John's Gospel tells us, "Martha served." She is revealed here performing the same task as when we first saw her, but now her service is infused with her faith, and the brevity of the description suggests the silence and peace in which she serves as opposed to the nervous anxiety she displayed earlier. 

Martha, whom we have seen serving, in Luke, and then believing, earlier in John, is now seen expressing her belief in the action of serving the Lord. "Martha served," and in doing so teaches us the way of Christian life.

Lazarus was the one of whom the Jews said, “See how much he loved him.” In their sight Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead. Around the year 390, the pilgrim lady Etheria talks of the procession that took place on the Saturday before Palm Sunday at the tomb where Lazarus had been raised from the dead. In the West, Passion Sunday was called Dominica de Lazaro, and Augustine tells us that in Africa the Gospel of the raising of Lazarus was read at the office of Palm Sunday.

St. Martha is the Patron of housewives, servants, waiters and cooks. St. Lazarus, whose name means “God has helped” is the Patron of butchers, gravediggers, beggars and lepers. The three, Sts. Martha, Mary, and Lazarus are the Patron of siblings.