“See How He Loved Them!”

Everything we know about the sisters Martha and Mary are found in the tenth chapter of Luke and the eleventh chapter of John, both of which contain the gospel passage selections we can choose for today’s memorial. These two gospel accounts tell of two entirely different events. Luke’s account of Martha hosting the Lord at her home while Mary sat at the feet of Jesus listening to him is much briefer, though no less extraordinary, than John’s much more lengthy account of the death and restoration to life of their brother Lazarus that basically occupies the entire chapter of John 11. Only through John do we know of their brother Lazarus who never speaks and who we really only meet in the gospel ancillarily. It is the raising of Lazarus that would directly bring about the Lord’s crucifixion, according to John.

It’s striking to me how much more we know about Martha (Mary and Lazarus to a much lesser extent) than any of the twelve Apostles except Peter. Most of the twelve never utter a word in the gospel accounts and the rest have at most a line or two, having what we would call in theater a “walk-on” role. It’s also quite true, when you stop to consider it, that it is women who have the most memorable stories in the gospels. We can list them and we vividly recall all the passages about them. There is the Samaritan woman Jesus met at the well (the longest encounter Jesus has with anyone in the gospels and with a woman shunned, no less), the Syrophoenician woman whose daughter was possessed (who the Apostles grew so weary of- but who could forget her amazing reply to the Lord’s seeming scorn of her pleas? “Oh woman!” Jesus exulted in response, “How great is your faith!”), the woman caught in adultery (another scorned woman), the woman who showed great love, the woman with the hemorrhage, the widow of Nain, the daughter of Jairus (who, along with the son of the widow of Nain, are the only two others besides Lazarus whom Jesus raised from the dead) and, of course, the blessed Mother herself, Mary Magdalene and Martha and Mary. Then there are the other women, Elizabeth, the mother of the Baptist, Ana in the temple, Peter’s mother-in-law (although Peter’s wife is never mentioned or ever even alluded to!), the stooped over woman, the widow who put in two pennies, the woman who blessed Jesus from the crowd (eliciting one of the great teachings of Jesus in reply) and the woman whose question first caused Peter to deny Jesus.

As I always tell every retreat group I’ve been involved with here at Loyola, it is women who have the absolute best stories in the gospels. None of the stories of men come close, except Peter’s many stories and perhaps those of Zacchaeus and Bartimaeus. And how many men does Jesus praise for their faith? Only the Centurion, I believe. He praised the faith of pretty much every woman who encountered him in the gospels. The fact that so many great stories of women encountering Jesus are preserved in the gospels, written in a time of extreme patriarchy, is something that the Church has yet to fully contemplate or appreciate, I feel. It’s also interesting that the only declared saints of the gospels other than the Apostles, are women- Martha and Mary (and admittedly their brother), Mary Magdalene and St. Elizabeth (the Blessed Mother goes without saying). All of this should give us pause, to say the least!

I wish there was room here to discuss Luke 10 and John 11 more fully. To me, it is just so extraordinary that two of the most memorable things Jesus ever said were told directly to St. Martha, a woman (not to mention all that Jesus told to the non-Jewish woman at the well, with she alone, other than Caiaphas at his trial, the one to whom he revealed plainly that he was the Christ). The first is that there is only one thing necessary and the second is that Jesus is the resurrection and the life. To that second revelation given to her, Martha confessed to Jesus her faith that he was the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who was to come into the world, which even exceeded Peter’s confession that won for him the keys to the Kingdom of heaven. No wonder that Jesus so loved Martha and her sister Mary (Jn 11:5). Martha is the only one, other than Simon Peter (Lk 22:31), who Jesus called by name twice, a sign of that great love he had for her. It is the love and faith of these two sisters along with that of St. Mary Magdalene (the first to meet the resurrected Lord) who we celebrated last Friday, along with so many other women who followed Jesus, some even to the cross (unlike his Apostles), that must have bolstered the early Church. Surely, as much as the Apostles, the Church must also have been built upon the witness of these great women. Is it not now time for the Church to recognize finally and completely this truth and the fullness of its implications?