In 2021 Pope Francis transformed the then memorial of St. Martha into the obligatory memorial of Sts. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. This was a wonderful decision in that it clarifies that Mary Magdelene and Mary of Bethany are two separate people (a genuine disagreement in the Church for a long time) and it creates a place of unity with our Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters who have long honored the three saints together as a family.
There are multiple directions of reflection on these three friends of our Lord. We could discuss the importance of the “one thing necessary” by juxtaposing Martha and Mary’s disposition when Jesus visits them in Luke 10:38-42, or we could discuss the difference in Mary’s relationship with our Lord and money and Judas’s in John 12:1-8, or we can reflect upon the mystery of the dramatic scene of Lazarus’s death and raising in John 11:1-44; 12:9-11.
Instead of doing that here (which is well worth doing and I would encourage anyone intrigued to bring those very passages to prayer intentionally), I want to focus on the hidden quality of this little “family” that Jesus held so dear in His heart. It is not an overstatement to say that in this little family in Bethany, we encounter some of the most revealing passages about the fullness of our Lord’s humanity. Lazarus is identified as “he whom you [Jesus] love,” “when Jesus saw her [Mary] weeping… he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled” so much so that the crowd looking was moved at His weeping and said, “See how he loved him!” (John 11:3, 33-36).
There is a level of intimacy that Jesus uniquely expresses with each of them that pulls at our hearts: Martha’s sure faith in the resurrection and her faithful questioning of the Lord upon Lazarus’s death, Mary’s anointing of Jesus’s feet for burial and washing them with her hair, and His weeping over Lazarus’s death, perhaps a weeping not only for his death but for the consequences of raising his beloved friend to life only to perish on earth again and yes, convert many, but in the process be a target of the chief priests to murder because of this final sign of our Lord (John 12:10). Love is dynamic and often doing what is good is mixed with grief and a sharing of burdens. This is why there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends (John 15:13).
All of these scenes of this family deeply loved by the Lord have an acute complexity and mirror the often seemingly conflicting experiences of following (and loving) Jesus. Amidst faith, there is the unknown. Amidst trust, there is mourning. Amidst miracles, there are enemies and ongoing trials. I want to focus on this beloved, and unusual family arrangement at their time of greatest trial, just six days before the Passover where Jesus will be crucified, to emphasize how we all have a hidden quality of being an apostle to our Lord: the interplay of grief and joy.
It is easy in the raising of Lazarus to focus just on the glory of the final sign of Jesus’s public ministry. Jesus raised someone from the dead! He must be the Messiah! This was the thoughts of those who had witnessed it and who had heard of it. It was certainly the mighty deed that inspired the reaction of the Jews culminating in Palm Sunday’s triumphant entrance to Jerusalem. But even in this triumphant moment, there is a bitterness present. Jesus entered and was hailed as King, yet He wept. Why? He wished to gather them under His wings like a mother-hen but knew many would not only turn to have Him crucified in a few days but even then would not come to believe and would reject Love.
Lazarus was a righteous and beloved man. He was a dear friend of our Lord. He was the brother of Martha and Mary. All three of them were single, and childless, but had an unconventional family as three siblings living with each other. They are not wealthy. They are not predominant figures of Jewish society. They are a simple odd-tag collective whose reasons for their living arrangement are left unrecorded as a mystery of history. Nonetheless, Jesus loved them. He must have visited with them many times as he traveled to Jerusalem for Passover over the years. They were one of those rare families that one could rely on for help, support, a bed, and a meal.
They were not only intimate friends who Jesus bore affection for, they were also devoted disciples who received His teachings with a full heart.
Their excellence as disciples is demonstrated by Mary sitting at His feet (Luke 10:39) and Martha’s excellent grasp of Jesus’s teaching on the resurrection of the dead (John 11:24). They not only “knew their catechism,” so to speak, but they also had a living breathing faith, one built on a firm trust in Jesus. This is the reason why they sent for Him when Lazarus suddenly fell very ill. They knew He could heal him. They know they are dear to him. They express the faith behind their request when Jesus arrives four days after Lazarus’s death when Martha says, “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died. And even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you” (John 11:21), and “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world” (John 11:27) and Mary similarly declares saying “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died” (John 11:32).
They trust in Him. Yet, He did not heal them. We are given this decision of the Lord explicitly in John 11:5-16. He let Lazarus die for greater glory, for others. But amid his death, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus do not know those ways beyond their ways (Isaiah 55:8). For Mary and Martha, their brother has died. They mourn. They weep, yet they have faith in Him though they know not what He means for their trial in this moment, they just know He is good and that only goodness comes from Him. Their faith isn’t blind, rather it is in the promise of His love.
Their faith doesn’t, nor does Jesus’s power, eliminate their grief. They grieve because to love is to lay down one’s life for one’s friends, to let them bear away a part of you with their very self. Love truly weaves us together in our Lord’s mystical body. When Lazarus died they had no idea whether the Lord would raise him. They knew He could, in some sense, they knew He would, but didn’t know if it would be a miracle or at the end of time. When Lazarus was raised from the dead as a foretaste of Jesus’s resurrection, unlike our Lord, he died again (see the Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraphs 640; 646). So even the joy of having not lost Lazarus is a delay of sorts, merely a sign, not the full reality of our Christian hope.
This little family might not have been predominant figures in Jewish culture, but in our faith, they are some of the most privileged saints. Their family’s personal story of grief became the greatest sign of Jesus’s identity. A virtually undeniable sign that inspired the pilgrims of Jerusalem to hail Him as King. Hidden within this story and its subsequent turn to joy by divine intervention are the hidden layers of meaning for our faith. Martha foreshadows the fulfillment of our faith in the resurrection through her profession and dialogue with Jesus while still in mourning. Lazarus’s resurrection heightens the complexity that those who follow Jesus will be persecuted while receiving miraculous blessings when the chief priests schemed to kill Lazarus because Jesus raised him from the dead. Mary prophetically anointed Jesus’s feet for burial before any of his followers had realized the reality of His mission culminating in the Cross. They acted in faith and their actions resonate beyond their intentions.
Their participation in salvation history, like all of ours, was a hidden apostolate. Sometimes the reality of their actions, their stories, and their faith was hidden even to them, almost all of it (before the proclamation of the Gospel later) was hidden from the world at the time of their happenings. But “nothing is hidden that will not be known” (Luke 12:2). Now we know. We celebrate these great saints, these hidden apostles, today in public together at mass. May we let their example encourage us that the Lord is doing great things through the entirety of our story, our times of grief, and our times of joy. We might not know yet the reality of their power, but we know that He is good and will be with us even when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death or are in the presence of our enemies (Psalm 23). He is preparing the way with goodness and mercy, for He is our Way, letting our good deeds overflow with His power into the lives of the entire Body of Christ throughout all of history (John 14:6).
Sts. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus pray for us.
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