Page:A Dictionary of Saintly Women Volume 2.djvu/57

45 ST. MARY 45 it is a disputed point whether Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, and the different persons or not. The Legenda Aurea says that St. Mary Magdalene was to have been married to St. John the Evangelist, and that Christ called him from the wedding. To compensate them for the loss of domestic happiness, He bestowed upon each of them an abundant love toward God. The same legend says that after the Ascension of the Lord, Mary, Martha, Lazarus, Maxim us or Maxi- minus, and Marcella were set adrift by the Jews in a boat without sails or oars. They were driven ashore at Marseilles, where the inhabitants refused them food or shelter. They took refuge in the porch of a heathen temple, and there Mary preached to the people who, after a time, were touched by her eloquence, and by the miracles performed by Lazarus and the others. Mary con- verted the King and Queen, and per- suaded them to destroy the temples and build Christian churches. Lazarus was unanimously chosen bishop of Mar- seilles, and Maximian bishop of Aix. Mary then withdrew to a cave (la Sainte Beaume) in a treeless, waterless desert, where she lived in prayer and penance for thirty years. She was fed, from time to time, by angels, and at every canonical hour they lifted her from the earth and she heard the songs of the blessed with her bodily ears. When her death was near, the angels carried her to the oratory of St. Maxi- mian on Easter Monday. He saw them holding her two or three cubits above the ground. She begged him to give her the holy sacrament, which he did in presence of many priests. She im- mediately died, and they buried her honourably at the place now called St. Mazimin. This and la Sainte Beaume, the tomb of Martha at Yezelay, of Lazarus at Autun, of Mary (5) and (0) at Aries and Tarascon were famous places of pilgrimage in the middle ages. ^Jtf. Mrs. Jameson. Villegas. The Golden Legend. Smith, Die. of the Bible, P^re Lacordaire. Paul Lacroix, Vie religieMe au moyen dge, " Pelerinages." St. Mary (4) of Bethany, July 29, is the pattern of the contemplative re- ligious life, as Martha is of the active. Twice reproached as unpractical or wasteful, our Lord in both cases ap- proved the course she took. She was sister of SS. Lazarus and Martha. All three were beloved by the Saviour. The first mention of the sisters is in St. Luke X. 38-42. Martha received Him into her house and *^ was cumbered about much serving, but Mary sat at His feet and heard His word." Martha com- plained that her sister was not helping her, and Christ gave her the memorable answer, "Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things, but. . . Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her." St. John xi tells of the death and resurrection of Lazarus. St. John xii. 1-8, tells how, after the raising of Lazarus, and six days before the Passover, the Lord again paid a visit to the family at Bethany and they made a feast for Him, Lazarus sitting with Him at the table, Martha again serving. "Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard very costly and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair : and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment." Judas blamed her as wasteful, but the Lord commended her action. In the legends she is identified with Mary Magdalene and with the '* sinner" of St. Luke vii. 37, but the circumstances of the anointing in St. Luke are quite different from those of the incident recorded by St. John. Compare with Martha (1) and Mauy Magdalene. St. Mary (o) of Clopas, April 0, May 23 (Mary Jacobi or Jacobe, Mary Unguentipera (MS. Synaxary at Dijon)), one of those who brought spices, etc., to embalm the body of the Lord ; one of " les irois Maries" (Sec Mary (3).) Represented carrying a vase. In the Bible she is called the " wife of Cleophas," but modern criticism says the name is Clopas, which is identical with AlphaBUS, and different from Cleopas mentioned by St. Luke xxiv. 8, at Emmaus. Tradition calls her sister
 * ' woman who was a sinner " were three