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Home , John 1, Martha, Salome, Salome (disciple), Zebedee

- The Lord's Worker and Servant.

Martha is the sister of / and Lazarus (all three of whom " loved" as we see in :5). Although she is only mentioned in three chapters of the , her character comes through clearly. We first meet her in :38- 42, toiling in the kitchen while her sister Mary, sits at the feet of Jesus, listening to Him speak. Martha stands and says to Our Lord, “Have you no care that my sister has left me alone to serve? Speak to her therefore, so that she helps me.” And the Lord answering, said to her: “Martha, Martha, thou art careful, and art troubled about many things: But only one thing is necessary. Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her.” Martha humbly accepts His rebuke and must have heeded His words, because the next time we meet her, is after the death of her beloved brother, Lazarus – when she makes a profound profession of faith.

Note the beautiful parallel between Saints Martha and Peter as revealed in John 11 and .

Martha therefore said to Jesus, “Lord, if Thou had been here, my brother would not have died. But now, I also know that, whatever Thou will ask of God, God will give it to you.” Jesus said to her: “Thy brother shall rise again.” Martha said to him: “I know that he shall rise again, in the resurrection, at the last day.” Jesus said to her: “ the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in Me, although he be dead, shall live: And everyone that live, and believeth in Me, shall not die. Do you believe this?” She said to Him: “Yes, Lord, I have come to believe that Thou art the , the Son of the living God, who has come into this world.” (John 11: 21-27)

We see here how closely her profession of faith resembles that of St. Peter’s. In Matthew 16, Jesus asked Simon, "But whom do you say that I am?" Simon answered, "Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matthew 16:16).

Both proclaimed Him as the Christ, Son of the Living God; but at the final hour of Our Lord’s Passion, although several women, including His mother, along with Mary and Martha and , were able to stand there as witnesses to His suffering, Peter was not. Our Lord called him to be “the rock”, but Peter wasn’t up to the task, at least, not yet.

Like many of the early disciples, including Martha and Peter, we too, can take a little longer to recognize the “one thing needed” which is, to love God, first, foremost, and completely!

So - What happened to Martha and her family after the Ascension of Our Lord? Tradition has it that, after the execution of St. James in (son of and Mary ), Mary Magdalene, her sister Martha and brother Lazarus were persecuted by the of Jerusalem and imprisoned. Since the didn’t believe in a resurrection, this group of the in particular, had good reason to drive off the resurrected Lazarus and his family. But they were too afraid of the crowds, to try and execute the prisoners directly. So, they decided to put them in a boat without sails or oars or supplies and towed them off the shores of Palestine and abandon them to the open sea; hoping for their death. Others in the boat were said to include, Mary Salome, mother of the apostles James and John, Maximin, one of the seventy-two disciples of Christ, Cedonius, the blind man who was miraculously healed by Jesus, Marcelle, Martha’s servant, and Sara, maid to the two afore mentioned Marys. After narrowly escaping death during a storm at sea, the boat finally came to shore on the coast of Gaul (modern day France) in a town now called: Saintes- Maries-de-la-Mer in Camargue. While Lazarus and Martha went on to evangelize , a fact recorded in French history, Mary Magdalene, was said to have retired to a cave in a mountain, to do penance for the rest of her life.

The liturgical of Saint Martha was begun by Franciscans, in 1262, and celebrated her feast on the 29th of July, eight days after the feast of her sister, St Mary Magdalene.