She was sister to Mary and Lazarus, and lived with them at Bethania,
a small town two miles distant from Jerusalem, a little beyond mount
Olivet. Our Blessed Redeemer had made his residence usually in
Galilee, till in the third year of his public ministry he preached
chiefly in Judæa, during which interval he frequented the house of
these three holy disciples. Martha seems to have been the eldest, and
to have had the chief care and direction of the household. It appears
from the history of the resurrection of Lazarus that their family was
of principal note in the country. In the first visit, as it seems,
with which Jesus honored them,[333] St. Luke tells us[334] that St.
Martha showed great solicitude to entertain and serve him. She forgot
the privilege of her rank and riches, and would not leave so great
an honor to servants only, but was herself very busy in preparing
everything for so great a guest and his holy company. Mary sat all
the while at our Saviour’s feet, feeding her soul with his heavenly
doctrine. In this she found such inexpressible sweetness, and so
great spiritual advantage, that she forgot and contemned the whole
world, and would suffer nothing to draw her from her entertainment
with her God, or make her lose any one of those precious moments. At
his sacred discourses her heart was inflamed, her pure soul seemed to
melt in holy love, and in a total forgetfulness of all other things
she said to herself, with the spouse in the Canticles, _My beloved to
me, and I to him, who feedeth among the lilies_;[335] that is with
chaste souls, or among the flowers of virtues. St. Austin observes
that this house represents to us the whole family of God on earth. In
it no one is idle, but his servants have their different employments,
some in the contemplative life, as recluses; others in the active;
as, first, those who labor for the salvation of souls in the exterior
functions of the pastoral charge; secondly, those who, upon pure
motives of charity, serve the poor or the sick; and, lastly, all
who look upon their lawful profession in the world as the place for
which God has destined them, and the employment which he has given
them; and who faithfully pursue its occupations with a view purely
to accomplish the divine will, and acquit themselves of every duty
in the order in which God has placed them in this world. He is the
greater saint, whatever his state of life may be, whose love of God
and his neighbor is more pure, more ardent, and more perfect; for
charity is the soul and form of Christian perfection.
But it has been disputed whether the contemplative or the active life
be in itself the more perfect. St. Thomas answers this question,[336]
proving from the example of Christ and his apostles, that the mixed
life, which is made up of both, is the most excellent. This is
the apostolic life, with the care of souls, if in it the external
functions of instructing, assisting, and comforting others, which
is the most noble object of charity, be supported by a constant
perfect spirit of prayer and contemplation. In order to this, a long
and fervent religious retirement ought to be the preparation which
alone can form the perfect spirit of this state; and the same must
be constantly nourished and improved by a vehement love and frequent
practice of holy retirement, and a continued recollection, as Christ
during his ministry often retired to the mountains to pray; for that
pastor who suffers the spirit of prayer to languish in his soul,
carries about a dead soul in a living body, to use the expression of
St. Bonaventure.[337] The like interior must animate; and some degree
of assiduity in the like exercises, as circumstances will allow,
must support those who are engaged in worldly employs, and those
who devote themselves to serve Christ’s most tender and afflicted
members, the poor and the sick, as Martha served Christ himself.
With so great love and fervor did Martha wait on our Redeemer, that,
as we cannot doubt, she thought that if the whole world were occupied
in attending so great a guest, all would be too little. She wished
that all men would employ their hands, feet, and hearts, all their
faculties and senses, with their whole strength, in serving with
her their gracious Creator, made for us our brother. Therefore,
sweetly complaining to him, she desired him to bid her sister Mary
to rise up and help her. Our meek and loving Lord was well pleased
with the solicitude and earnestness, full of affection and devotion,
wherewith Martha waited on him; yet he commended more the quiet
repose with which Mary attended only to that which is of the greatest
importance, the spiritual improvement of her soul. _Martha, Martha,_
said he, _thou art careful and troubled about many things; but one
thing is necessary._ If precipitation or too great eagerness had any
share in her service, this would have been an imperfection; which,
nevertheless, does not appear. Christ only puts Martha in mind that
though corporal duties ought not to be neglected, and if sanctified
by a perfect intention of charity are most excellent virtues, yet
spiritual functions, when they come in competition, are to be
preferred. The former, indeed, become spiritual, when animated by
a perfect spirit and recollection; but this is often much impaired
by the distraction of the mind, and in the course of action. In our
external employments, which we direct with a pure intention to fulfil
the divine will, we imitate the angels when they are employed by God
in being our guardians, or in other external functions with which
God hath charged them; but as these blessed spirits in such employs
never lose sight of God, so ought we in all our actions to continue,
at least virtually, to adore and praise his holy name; but herein the
eye of the soul is often carried off, or its attention much weakened,
whereas, in heavenly contemplation, the heart is wholly taken up in
God, and more perfectly united to him by adoration and love. This is
the novitiate of heaven, where it is the uninterrupted occupation of
the blessed. In this sense Christ so highly commends the choice of
Mary, affirming that her happy employment would never be taken from
her. He added, “_One thing is necessary_;” which words some explain
as if he had said, “A little is enough, one dish suffices;” but the
word _necessary_ determines the sense rather to be, as St. Austin,
St. Bernard, Maldonatus, Grotius, and others, expound it, eternal
salvation is our only affair.
Another instance which shows how dear this devout family was to our
divine Saviour, is the raising of Lazarus to life. When he fell
sick, the pious sisters sent to inform Christ, who was then absent
in Galilee. They said no more in their message than this: _He whom
thou lovest is sick._ They knew very well that this was enough; and
that his tender bowels would be moved to compassion by the bare
representation of their calamity. It was not to remove our corporal
miseries that Christ came from heaven, and died and suffered so much;
this was not the object which drew down this Almighty Physician
among us. If, in his mortal life on earth, he healed the sick and
raised the dead, by these miracles he would manifest, as by sensible
tokens, the spiritual cures which he desired to work in our souls.
We groan under the weight of innumerable and the most dreadful
spiritual miseries. Our tender Redeemer knows their horrible depth
and endless extent; but he would have us to conceive a just sense
of them, to acknowledge them, and earnestly to implore his aid; for
this he sheds the rays of his light upon our blind souls, and rouses
us by his repeated graces. The first step towards a deliverance is,
that we confess, with a feeling sense, our extreme baseness and
ingratitude, and our weakness and total incapacity of doing anything
of ourselves towards our recovery; but we have a physician infinitely
tender and powerful. To him then we must continually lay open our
distress, and with deep compunction display our miseries before his
holy eyes, earnestly striving by this dumb eloquence to move him to
pity; exposing to him that we whom he loveth still as the work of
his hands, as the price of his blood, lie ingulfed in unspeakable
miseries. Thus we must entreat him, with tears and loud cries of our
hearts, to look down on his image in our souls, now disfigured and
sullied with sin; on his kingdom left desolate by the tyranny of the
devil and our passions: on the vineyard which himself had planted,
adorned, and fenced, but which is laid waste by merciless robbers and
enemies; and that he would stretch out his almighty hand to repair
these breaches, and save us. So long as life lasts we can never be
sure that we shall find mercy, or rest secure of the issue of our
great trial upon which our eternity depends; so long, therefore,
we ought never to cease, with most earnest cries, to implore the
clemency of our Judge, laying open our spiritual miseries to him
in these words of the two sisters,--“Behold he, whom thou lovest,
is sinking under the weight of his evils,” and beg him to remember
his ancient love and mercies towards us. We ought also in corporal
distempers to address ourselves to God with the like words, begging
with Martha our own or our brother’s corporal health, if this may be
expedient to our souls, and conducive to the divine honor.
In all these petitions we ought to implore the joint supplications
of the saints, as at the entreaties of the sisters Christ raised
Lazarus. Having received their message, he wanted no other prompter
than that of his own compassion and affection; an emblem of the
paternal mercy with which he draws to himself, and receives penitent
sinners. Had the prodigal son offered any plea of merits or deserts,
he had never deserved to find favor; but he knew the goodness and
tenderness of his father, who had with restless nights waited with
impatience to see him return. The tender parent wanted no motives
drawn from other objects or things without himself. The paternal
affection within his own breast pleaded in favor of his disobedient
child. By this his very bowels yearned to embrace him again, and
raise him from spiritual death to life. This same tenderness and
compassion in Christ was the grounds of the sisters’ confidence.
Jesus, however, deferred setting out two or three days, that his
glory might be more manifested by the greater evidence of the
miracle, and by the trial of the virtue and confidence of the two
holy sisters. When he arrived at Bethania, Martha went first out to
meet and welcome him; and then called her sister Mary. The presence
of Jesus brings every blessing and comfort; and, by it, the sisters
had the joy to see their brother again restored to life when he had
been four days in the grave.
Christ was again at Bethania, at the house of Simon the Leper, six
days before his passion. Lazarus was one of the guests. Martha waited
at table; and Mary poured a box of costly ointments on our Lord’s
feet, which she wiped with the hair of her head.[338] Judas Iscariot
complained of this waste, saying that the ointment might have been
sold, and the price given to the poor. Not that he had any regard
for the poor, but, bearing the common purse, he converted things
sometimes to his own use, being a thief. How imperceptible a vice is
covetousness, and how subtle in excuses to deceive itself! Charity
interprets the actions of others in the best part; but passion
hurries men into rash judgments. Judas condemned the most heroic
virtue and devotion of a saint; but Jesus undertook her defence. He
was pleased not with the ointment, but with the love and devotion of
his fervent servant, which he suffered her to satisfy by that action,
which he received as performed for the embalming of his body, his
death being then at hand. He, moreover, declared that this good work
which Judas condemned, should be commended to the edification of his
servants over the whole world wherever his gospel should be preached.
St. Martha seems to have been one of those holy women who attended
Christ during his passion, and stood under his cross. After his
ascension, she came to Marseilles, and ended her life in Provence,
where her body was found at Tarascon, soon after the discovery of
that of St. Mary Magdalen. It lies in a magnificent subterraneous
chapel of the stately collegiate church at Tarascon, which is
dedicated to God in her honor. King Louis XI. gave a rich bust of
gold, in which the head of the saint is kept.
* * * * *
We have all, like St. Martha, one only necessary affair; that for
which alone God created and redeemed us; for which he has wrought so
many wonderful mysteries in our favor, and upon which the dreadful
alternative of sovereign and everlasting happiness or misery depends.
This is, that we refer even all our worldly employments and all
that we do, to glorify God, to fulfil his will, and to save our
souls. In this, all our thoughts, desires, and enterprises, ought
to centre: this is the circle in which we must shut ourselves up,
and never think of moving out of. Every one ought sincerely to say
with an ancient writer, “I have but one only affair; and I care for
nothing else only lest any other thing should take off any part of my
attention from this my only business.”[339] What account will they
be able to give to themselves or to their Judge at the last day, who
make vanity, pastimes, and idle employments, the sole business of
their life? or they who toil and slave much in bustling through the
world, seeming to neglect nothing but their only affair.
SS. SIMPLICIUS AND FAUSTINUS, BROTHERS,
AND BEATRICE, THEIR SISTER, MM.
The two brothers were cruelly tormented, and at length beheaded at
Rome in the persecution of Diocletian, in the year 303. Their sister
Beatrice took up their bodies out of the Tiber, and gave them burial.
She lay herself concealed seven months in the house of a virtuous
widow called Lucina, with whom she spent her time, night and day,
in fervent prayer, and in the exercise of other good works. She
was discovered and impeached by a pagan kinsman, who designed to
possess himself of her estate, which was contiguous to his own; she
resolutely protested to the judge that she would never adore gods of
wood and stone, and was strangled by his order in prison the night
following. Lucina buried her body near her brothers on the side of
the highway to Porto, in the cemetery called Ad Ursum Pileatum. Pope
Leo translated their relics into a church which he built to their
honor in the city: they now lie in that of St. Mary Major.
With them is commemorated St. Felix, pope and martyr, whose name is
found in the Martyrologies on this day.