St. Martha

Feast date: Jul 29

“Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus” (John 11:5).

Saint Martha is mentioned in three Gospel passages: Luke 10:38-42, John 11:1-53, and John 12:1-9, and the type of friendship between her and her siblings, Mary and Lazarus, with the Lord Jesus is evident in these passages.

In the gospel of Luke, Martha receives Jesus into her home and worries herself with serving Him, a worry that her sister Mary, who sat beside the Lord’s feet “listening to Him speak,” doesn’t share. Her complaint that her sister is not helping her serve draws a reply from the Lord who says to her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”

The overanxiousness she displays in serving is put into the right context by Jesus who emphasizes the importance of contemplating Him before all things.

Yet she is seen next in John, outside the tomb of her brother Lazarus who had died four days earlier, as the one who receives the Revelation from the Lord that “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

When asked by the Lord if she believed this she said to Him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world,” displaying her great faith which is confirmed by Jesus’ subsequent raising of her brother Lazarus from the grave.

In the third and last instance, we see Martha, again in John, at a house in Bethany where Jesus was reclining at table with her brother Lazarus after he had raised him from the dead. During dinner, John’s Gospel tells us, “Martha served.” She is revealed here performing the same task as when we first saw her, but now her service is infused with her faith, and the brevity of the description suggests the silence and peace in which she serves as opposed to the nervous anxiety she displayed earlier.  Martha, whom we have seen serving, in Luke, and then believing, earlier in John, is now seen expressing her belief in the action of serving the Lord. “Martha served,” and in doing so teaches us the way of Christian life.

Saint Martha is the patron of housewives, servants, waiters and cooks.

St. Victor I, Pope

Feast date: Jul 28

The date of birth of St. victor is unknown, but we do know that he was Pope from 189 to 199.

Victor was a native African, and his father’s name was Felix. He is known for having obtained the release of many Christians who had been deported to the mines of Sardinia, and for being the first Pope to celebrate the liturgy and write Church documents in Latin rather than Greek.

He is most famous, however, for decreeing that Easter be universally celebrated on a Sunday, a practice already common in the West, but not so in the East.

He died in 199, possibly from martyrdom.

St. Panteleon

Feast date: Jul 27

St. Panteleon, whose feast we celebrate on July 27, is the patron saint of bachelors and physicians.

As lifelong layperson, he was the physician for emperor Maximinianus. At one point in his life he had abandoned his faith, but he eventually returned to the Church, and gave his fortune to the poor, providing them medical treatment without charge. Some of his cures were accomplished by prayer.

Other physicians eventually denounced him to the anti-Christian authorities. At his trial, he offered a contest between himself and the pagan priests. He challenged the pagan priests to heal a paralyzed man with their prayers, but they were unable. St. Panteleon cured the man by simply mentioning the name of Jesus. As a result, many of those who witnessed the miracle converted to Christianity.

However, the authorities remained resolute in trying to get him to denounce his faith with bribes, threats and torture, but they did not succeed. He was then nailed to a tree and beheaded in c.305.