Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever. 
Today, we honor three holy siblings whom Jesus especially loved. Martha had a house near Jerusalem on the far side of the Mount of Olives. There she hosted Jesus and His apostles on at least a couple of occasions. Mary was Martha’s sister and lived with her. She expressed her great love for Jesus by anointing His feet with ointment worth 300 days’ wages for a laborer. Lazarus was their brother, whom Jesus raised from the dead at the risk of His own life. In fact, it was the raising of Lazarus that convinced the leaders of the Jews that they could not wait any longer. They had to bring about Jesus’ death.
Clearly, these siblings were wealthy because Mary had expensive ointment and Martha had a house big enough to host Jesus, His apostles, and perhaps others who were traveling with them. Martha’s name is the Aramaic word for lady, as in Lord and Lady. That’s another indication that she was someone important. But what makes them important to us is not wealth or nobility, but holiness. Today’s first reading speaks of charity, and in Martha and Mary, we see charity toward neighbor and toward God, respectively.
Martha welcomes travelers and serves them. She feeds the hungry and gives drink to the thirsty. She buries her dead brother. These are three corporal works of mercy. Mary contemplates the Lord. “Look to Him that you may be radiant with joy.” She sits at the Lord’s feet to listen to His teaching in loving contemplation of the truth and of His more-than-human presence.
We see this difference between the two in a famous episode St. Luke recounts. You may recall it from the Sunday before last. Martha was hosting Jesus, and since she was so busy with serving, she wanted Mary to help her instead of just sitting at Jesus’ feet listening to Him. Jesus said, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” But the part Martha has chosen will be taken away from her sooner or later. Bodies need food and drink now, but they will not need them in the life to come. On the other hand, the contemplation that Mary began here on Earth will continue for all eternity. This will never be taken away.
Martha learned the lesson. The next time we read that Martha served in John 12:2, she was no longer anxious and worried. Service of neighbor was not an obstacle to love anymore. That dinner for Jesus was the day before He entered Jerusalem in triumph amid the waving of palm branches. In the chapter before that, St. John tells at length the story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead. He introduces it by saying something surprising: “Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill.”
What’s curious about this is that St. John hasn’t mentioned Mary anointing the feet of the Lord yet; that story comes later in the next chapter. So a first-time reader of the Gospel couldn’t be expected to know about it. Since he’s writing to supplement the other Gospels, he could be referring to something in one of them. In Luke 7:36-50, there’s a story about an unnamed woman who dried Jesus’ feet with her hair and anointed them with perfumed oil. So he could be referring to that. And in fact, if he had not been referring to that, he should not have said that Mary was the one who had done this to Jesus, because then there would be two women who did it.
For this reason, many Western authors have identified Mary of Bethany with the sinful woman of Luke 7 She has traditionally been identified also with Mary Magdalene, although scholars today tend not to accept this. So Pope Francis added Mary of Bethany to today’s memorial. Leaving aside the question of whether they are the same or different people, let’s get back to the raising of Lazarus. This is the passage from which today’s Gospel is taken. It shows St. Martha in a good light, for her faith is exemplary. She believes in the resurrection of the just at the end of the world, unlike the Sadducees, and she knows that she has not lost her brother forever.
But Jesus declares, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). The resurrection is not just something in the future; it is, to some extent, already present, and this is demonstrated by the fact that Lazarus rises from the dead. St. Peter said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). St. Martha says, “I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God” (John 11:27). As in St. Peter’s case, flesh and blood has not revealed this to her, but Christ’s Father who is in heaven.
While Martha and Jesus were speaking, Mary was in the house. Again, we see that she is the retired and contemplative one. After Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, He left the vicinity of Jerusalem, since the Jewish leaders would soon decide that it was a political necessity to kill Him in cold blood. He returned for the Passover, the time appointed for Him to pass from this world to the Father. And six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.
So they gave a dinner for Him there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with Him at table. Mary, therefore, took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. What Mary did here was an unrestrained gesture of love, the act of someone who is so much in love that she doesn’t care what others think about her.
For a first-century Jewish woman to let down her hair in front of a man who was not her husband was scandalous, but Jesus would understand, and that was all she cared about. To anoint someone’s feet was a job for the lowest-ranking slave, not a woman from a wealthy family. And finally, the cost of the ointment she used was exorbitant. All this shows Mary’s great love for God, a love that is almost out of control.
As David danced before the Ark and cared nothing for the fact that his wife thought it undignified, so Mary anointed Jesus and cared nothing for what people thought. It is right to honor the Lord even when people around us fail to understand. There is another manifestation of love, not essential to love in itself, but essential to the love of those who have offended God, and that is repentance.
St. Bernard sees a figure of the hardened sinner in Lazarus, who stayed in the tomb four days until he stank. The Lord is able to raise even hardened sinners to the life of grace as He raised Lazarus at the prayers of his sisters. Not that Lazarus was necessarily a great sinner. In fact, the Gospel does not mention any sin that he committed. But insofar as he is dead and buried, he is the figure of a sinner who has died to the life of grace.
St. Bernard sums up these three expressions of love: Martha’s ministering, Mary’s contemplation, and Lazarus’s penitence. Any soul that is perfect has all these elements, yet different elements seem to belong to different people. So some give their time to the contemplation of God, while some are occupied in ministering to their brethren, and others, again, in the bitterness of their soul, mull over their past as though wounded and dead in their graves. According to Western tradition, after Jesus’s resurrection, these three siblings came to the south of France, to which they brought the Christian faith.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.