St. Martha

July 29 is the feast of St. Martha, the sister of Mary and Lazarus, who welcomed Christ into her home at Bethany, the village on the Mount of Olives near Jerusalem. The Gospel of Luke (10:38-42) shows her busy with the serving while her sister Mary sat at Christ's feet; the Gospel of John (11:1-44) shows her going out to meet Christ on the road, four days after the burial of Lazarus, and making the confession that is the climax of the fourth Gospel: "Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world."

The Western tradition, since the medieval period, has identified the Bethany Martha with the Mary of Luke 7 (the penitent woman) and with Mary Magdalene — a conflation the Eastern churches never adopted. The 1969 reform of the Roman calendar separated the feasts: Martha on July 29, Mary Magdalene on July 22, and the penitent woman is no longer given a separate feast. The Bethany family is honoured at the house at Bethany, where the Franciscans keep the traditional site of Martha's welcoming.

The tradition of Provence, attested from the 13th century, says that Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were set adrift in a boat without oars and landed at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in Provence, where Martha then lived and, by tradition, tamed the Tarasque beast at Tarascon. Her relics are venerated in the Collegiate Church of Sainte-Marthe at Tarascon. From Bethany, where she confessed Christ, to Tarascon, where she is said to have died, the July 29 feast is the feast of the busy host whose faith was the greater.