Ecumenical Commemoration
Siblings & Friends of Jesus
July 29
also known as The Bethany Family, Lazarus the Four-Days Dead, Mary of Bethany, Martha of Bethany
Lazarus, Mary, and Martha were the three of Bethany whom the Gospel says Jesus loved, and whose home near Jerusalem was his refuge and his friends' table. Martha served, Mary sat at his feet to listen, and over their brother Lazarus, dead four days in the tomb, Jesus wept and then called him back to life. Their household is the Gospel's picture of friendship with Christ, and the raising of Lazarus its great sign that he is the resurrection and the life.
In the village of Bethany, on the far slope of the Mount of Olives a short walk from Jerusalem, in Roman Judea, today al-Eizariya in the West Bank, whose very name means the place of Lazarus, there lived a brother and his two sisters whose home Jesus loved. When he came to them, Martha threw herself into the work of hospitality while her sister Mary sat down at the Lord's feet to listen to him; and when Martha complained of being left to serve alone, Jesus answered her gently, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion." It was not that Martha's love was wrong, but that Mary had found the better thing, to be with him.
Then Lazarus fell ill and died, and by the time Jesus came he had lain four days in the tomb. Martha went out to meet him with a faith that held even through her grief, and Jesus said to her the words that have been spoken over the Christian dead ever since: "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live." Do you believe this, he asked her, and Martha answered, "Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God," a confession as great as Peter's. And then, standing before the grave of his friend, the Lord of life did the thing that shows us his heart: "Jesus wept." He who knew he was about to raise the dead man still wept for him, and for the sisters, and for all our dying. Then he cried out with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out," and the dead man came out, bound hand and foot in his graveclothes, alive.
A little later, six days before the Passover that would end in his own death, Jesus came again to that house, and Mary took a pound of costly ointment and anointed his feet and wiped them with her hair, and the house was filled with the fragrance. When she was reproached for the waste, Jesus defended her: she had kept it, he said, for the day of his burial. The sisters who had wept for their brother would soon weep for their Lord, and Mary's extravagant love had, without quite knowing it, prepared him for the tomb out of which he would summon himself.
This is the household the church keeps before it: the busy sister and the still one, both loved; the friend wept over and raised; the home where Jesus was simply at home. In Bethany the Gospel shows us that the Lord of all the worlds wanted what we want, a place to rest, a table among friends, hands to anoint him. And over that ordinary house it speaks its deepest promise, that the one who wept at the grave is himself the resurrection and the life, and that those who believe in him, though they die, shall live.
How we know the family of Bethany is from two Gospels. Luke gives the scene of Martha and Mary, the active sister and the attentive one, without naming Bethany or their brother; John, in his eleventh and twelfth chapters, names them all and tells of the raising of Lazarus and the anointing. One clarification belongs here: Mary of Bethany is not Mary Magdalene. The Western church, following a homily of Pope Gregory the Great in 591, long merged several Gospel women into one figure, but the Eastern church never did, and modern scholarship keeps them distinct, as does the present Roman calendar; Mary Magdalene is honored on her own day, July 22. The later traditions of the family's life after the Gospels, that Lazarus became the first bishop of Kition on Cyprus, or that all three sailed to Provence, where Lazarus became bishop of Marseille and Martha tamed a dragon at Tarascon, are medieval legends without historical foundation.
The three of Bethany are commemorated together on July 29 in the Episcopal Church and the Church of England; the Roman calendar, which long kept only Martha on that day, joined all three in 2021. Martha, the busy hostess, is the patron of cooks and hosts and homemakers, of all who serve. The raising of Lazarus is read in Lent and at the burial of the dead, the church's sign that Christ has conquered the grave; the Eastern church keeps Lazarus Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday, as a feast of resurrection joy on the threshold of Holy Week. In art Martha appears with the keys or ladle of her housekeeping, Mary at the feet of Jesus with her jar of ointment, and Lazarus rising from the tomb still wrapped in his graveclothes. At Bethany the traditional tomb of Lazarus is venerated still.
Further reading. The household of Bethany left no writings; their witness is the Gospel itself, above all Luke 10 and John 11 and 12, where Martha serves, Mary listens and anoints, and Lazarus is raised. The two scenes, the choice of the better portion and the raising at the grave, have been among the most pondered passages in all of Scripture.
Online resources. The Gospel accounts are at Bible Gateway in the English Standard Version.
S. Martha, hostess of our Lord Jesu Christ, was born of a royal kindred. Her father was named Syro and her mother Encharia. The father of her was duke of Syria and places maritime, and Martha with her sister possessed by the heritage of their mother three places, that was, the castle Magdalen, and Bethany and a part of Jerusalem. It is nowhere read that Martha had ever any husband ne fellowship of man, but she as a noble hostess ministered and served our Lord, and would also that her sister should serve him and help her, for she thought that all the world was not sufficient to serve such a guest. After the ascension of our Lord, when the disciples were departed, she with her brother Lazarus and her sister Mary, also S. Maximin which baptized them, and to whom they were committed of the Holy Ghost, and many others, were put into a ship without sail, oars, or rudder governail, of the paynims, which by the conduct of our Lord they came all to Marseilles, and after came to the territory of Aquense or Aix, and there converted the people to the faith. Martha was right facound of speech, and courteous and gracious to the sight of the people.
There was that time upon the river of Rhone, in a certain wood between Arles and Avignon, a great dragon, half beast and half fish, greater than an ox, longer than an horse, having teeth sharp as a sword, and horned on either side, head like a lion, tail like a serpent, and defended him with two wings on either side, and could not be beaten with cast of stones ne with other armour, and was as strong as twelve lions or bears; which dragon lay hiding and lurking in the river, and perished them that passed by and drowned ships. He came thither by sea from Galicia, and was engendered of Leviathan, which is a serpent of the water and is much wood, and of a beast called Bonacho, that is engendered in Galicia. And when he is pursued he casts out of his belly behind, his ordure, the space of an acre of land on them that follow him, and it is bright as glass, and what it touches it burns as fire. To whom Martha, at the prayer of the people, came into the wood, and found him eating a man. And she cast on him holy water, and showed to him the cross, which anon was overcome, and standing still as a sheep, she bound him with her own girdle, and then was slain with spears and glaives of the people. The dragon was called of them that dwelled in the country Tarasconus, whereof, in remembrance of him that place is called Tarasconus, which tofore was called Nerluc, and the Black Lake, because there be woods shadowous and black. And there the blessed Martha, by licence of Maximin her master, and of her sister, dwelled and abode in the same place after, and daily occupied in prayers and in fastings, and thereafter assembled and were gathered together a great convent of sisters, and builded a fair church at the honour of the blessed Mary virgin, where she led a hard and a sharp life. She eschewed flesh and all fat meat, eggs, cheese and wine; she ate but once a day. An hundred times a day and an hundred times a night she kneeled down and bowed her knees.
On a time, at Avignon, when she preached between the town and the river of Rhone, there was a young man on that other side of the river desiring to hear her words, and had no boat to pass over. He began to swim naked, but he was suddenly taken by the strength of the water, and anon suffocate and drowned, whose body unnethe was found the next day. And when it was taken up, it was presented at the feet of Martha for to be raised to life. She then, in manner of a cross, fell down to the ground and prayed in this manner: O Adonay, Lord Jesu Christ, which raisedst sometime my well-beloved brother, behold my most dear guest to the faith of them that stand here, and raise this child. And she took him by the hand, and forthwith he arose living and received the holy baptism.
Eusebius tells in the book of the Historia Ecclesiastica that a woman named Emorissa, after that she was healed of our Lord, she made in her court an image like unto Jesu Christ, with cloth and hem, like as she saw him when she was healed, and worshipped him much devoutly. The herbs that grew under the image tofore that she had touched the hem, were of no virtue, but, after that she had touched it, they were of so much virtue that many sick people by them were healed. That woman Emorissa, whom our Lord healed, Ambrose says that it was Martha. S. Jerome says, and it is had in Historia Tripartita, that Julianus Apostata took away that image that Emorissa made, and set his own there, which, with the stroke of thunder, was all tobroken. Our Lord came to her a year tofore her death, and showed to her that she should depart out of this world, and all that year she was sick and laboured in the fevers, and eight days tofore her death she heard the heavenly fellowship of angels bearing her sister's soul into heaven, and anon did do come all the convent of brethren and of sisters, and said to them: My friends and most sweet fellows, I pray you to rejoice and enjoy with me, for I see the fellowship of angels bear the soul of my sister Mary unto heaven. O most fair and sweet sister, you live now with your master and my guest in the blessed seat in heaven. And then anon Martha said to them that were present, that her death was nigh, and bade to light the tapers about her, and that they should wake unto her death. And about midnight tofore the day of her death, they that should watch her were heavy of sleep and slept, and there came a great wind and extinguished and did out the lights. She then, seeing a great tourbe of wicked spirits, began to pray and said: My father Eli, my dear guest, these deceivers be gathered for to devour me, bringing written, all the evil deeds that ever I did. O blessed Eli be not withdrawn from me, but intend in to mine help; and forthwith she saw her sister coming to her, holding a brand in her hand, and lighted the tapers and lamps, and as each of them called other by their name, Christ came to them saying: Come, my well-beloved hostess, for where I am you shall be with me. You have received me in your harbour and I shall receive you in mine heaven, and all them that call upon you, I shall hear them for your love. Then the hour of her death approaching, she commanded that she should be borne out of the house that she might behold and look up into heaven, and to lay her on the earth, and to hold the sign of the cross tofore her, and saying these words, she prayed: My sweet guest, I beseech you to keep me, your poor creature, and like as you have vouchsafed to be lodged with me, so I beseech you to receive me into your heavenly harbour. And then she bade that the passion after Luke should be read tofore her, and when this was said: Pater, in manus tuas commendo spiritum meum, she gave up her spirit and died in our Lord. The next day following, that was the Sunday, whiles they said lauds about her body, and did her obsequies, and about the hour of tierce, at Petrogoricke, our Lord appeared to the blessed Frontonius singing mass, which after the epistle slept in his chair, and said to him: My wellbeloved Frontonius, if you will fulfil that you behight long sith to my hostess Martha, arise anon and follow me. Whose commandment he obeyed, and suddenly both came to Tarascona, and singing the office about the body and the other answering, they with their own hands laid the body into the sepulchre. And troth it was that at Petrogoricke, when they had sung in the choir and the deacon should go read the gospel and receive the benediction, they awoke the bishop, demanding the benediction. Then the bishop awoke and said: Why have you awakened me, my brethren? Our Lord Jesu Christ has led me to his hostess Martha, and we have laid her in her sepulchre. Now send thither messengers for to fetch our ring of gold and our gloves, which whiles I made me ready to bury her, I delivered them to the sexton, and I have forgotten them there because you awoke me so soon. Then were messengers sent forth, and as the bishop said, they found his ring and one glove which they brought again, and that other the sexton retained for a witness and memory. And the blessed Frontonius added thereto, saying that after her sepulture, a brother of the same place, a learned man in the law, demanded of our Lord what was his name?To whom he answered not, but showed a book open in his hand in which was written this versicle: In everlasting memory shall be my rightful hostess, and she shall dread none evil in the last day; and when he should turn the leaves of the book, in every leaf he found that same written, where afterward many miracles were showed and done at her tomb. Then Clovis, king of France, was after this made a christian man, and baptized of S. Remigius, and suffering great pain in his reins, came to her tomb and there received very health. For which cause he enriched that place, and the space of three miles way about on both sides of the river of Rhone, as well towns as castles, he gave to the same place, and that place he made free. Martilla, her servant, wrote her life, which afterward went into Sclavonia, and there preached the gospel of Christ, and after ten years, from the death of Martha, she rested in our Lord. Then let us pray to this blessed Martha, hostess of our Lord, that after this short life we may be harboured in heaven with our blessed Lord Jesu Christ, to whom be given joy, laud and praising, world without end. Amen.
Almighty God, you have surrounded us with a great cloud of witnesses: Grant that we, encouraged by the good example of your servants Lazarus, Mary, and Martha of Bethany, may persevere in running the race that is set before us, until at last, with him, we attain to your eternal joy; through Jesus Christ, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Readings for a Commemoration
Micah 6:6–8Psalm 11 Corinthians 1:18–31John 3:16–21
British (Received Pronunciation): Tarascon /ˈtærəskɒn/