Sts. Martha, Mary and Lazarus
Patron of cooks, servants, homemakers, innkeepers, hospitality
Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were the three siblings of Bethany whose home, only two miles from Jerusalem on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, was a place of friendship and refuge for the Lord during his Judean ministry. The Gospels reveal them to us in three luminous scenes: Martha bustling at her service while Mary sits at the feet of Jesus to listen to his word (Luke 10); Martha's confession of faith at the death of Lazarus — "Yes, Lord, I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God" — followed by the raising of her brother from the tomb on the fourth day (John 11); and Mary's anointing of the Lord's feet with costly nard six days before the Passover, an act that Jesus himself defended as a preparation for his burial (John 12).