St. Martha and the Dragons

A continuation of my Female Saints series

Did you know St. Martha fought dragons?

Seriously, guys. She did a lot more than just make dinner for Jesus. (Not that making dinner for Jesus is nothing, right?)

But most of the time being called a "Martha" is a bad thing, and that's always bugged me a little. We tend to just remember her first appearance in the gospels:

Vermeer, Christ in the House of Martha and Mary

“As they continued their journey he entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary [who] sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.” The Lord said to her in reply, “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.””

— Luke 10:38-42 (NAB)

If this was all we knew about Martha, then she wouldn't come off too well, would she? But we can also relate to her. Who hasn't had work to do at a party, worried about dishes and serving and the turkey in the oven, while other people are just sitting around, not thinking about everything that needs to be done? It might not be a good reaction, but it's one that we can relate to. 

Often, this passage is used to illustrate the "active" and "contemplative" ways of life. There's some merit in that. Mary is the contemplative, at the feet of Jesus, lost in prayer, and Martha is the one who serves Jesus, who works in the kitchen and makes the house ready for His visit. Both sides are important in the Christian life, and to have just one side isn't good. 

But Martha is a lot more than just the housekeeper. In the Gospel of John, we see her great faith after her brother, Lazarus, has died: 

“ And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. [But] even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise.” Martha said to him, “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus told her, “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. Do you believe 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.””

— John 11: 19-27 (NAB)

Martha  shows her belief in Jesus here, and testifies, like Peter, that he is the Messiah. She knows who He is. She knows He could have healed her brother if he had been there earlier, but she also accepts Lazarus' death. Her faith in Jesus isn't shaken by this event. 

Martha is strong in both her temperament and her faith. She isn't perfect--Jesus tells her that she has to learn the 'better part' in Luke’s Gospel--but she has many admirable qualities that can be overlooked. She has common sense, strength, a desire to serve and take care of her family, and a concern for others. 

So--what about the dragons? (Come on, Emily, get to the good stuff.)

Well, that's from a French legend: 

“...further legend relates that Martha then went to Tarascon, France, where a monster, the Tarasque, was a constant threat to the population. The Golden Legend describes it as a beast from Galicia; a great dragon, half beast and half fish, greater than an ox, longer than an horse, having teeth sharp as a sword, and horned on either side, head like a lion, tail like a serpent, that dwelt in a certain wood between Arles and Avignon. Holding a cross in her hand, Martha sprinkled the beast with holy water. Placing her sash around its neck, she led the tamed dragon through the village.
There Martha lived, daily occupied in prayers and in fastings. Martha eventually died in Tarascon, where she was buried. Her tomb is located in the crypt of the local Collegiate Church.”

— Catholic Online

There might not be a lot of dragons around today, but St. Martha is still a good saint to keep in mind when the dragons of chaos and doubt roar in our daily lives. 

She's the patron saint of cooks, and her feast day is July 29. 

An accidental patron: St. Therese and Me

Some people have riveting stories about how they found their confirmation saint. It was a sign from God, a message from above, a huge thunderclap of recognition. 

Mine was....sort of random. 

When I started my eighth grade year, I knew I'd be confirmed at the end of it. So I started reading books about the saints, in the hope that I'd find one I liked enough to be my confirmation saint. In the Catholic church, you pick a confirmation name--the name of a saint you admire and want to imitate. This saint becomes one of your patron saints, along with any saints you might be named after, or have particular attachment to. (For example, there is a saint Emily--although I'm not named after her--and my middle name is a derivative of Michael, so St. Michael the archangel has always been one of my patrons.) You're not "supposed" to choose a saint you're named after, though--at least you weren't at my school. You were supposed to pick a different saint. 

Some people pick saints based on their patronages; in my family, a lot of people chose St. Cecilia, because she's the patron saint of music. (St. Gregory the Great is the patron saint of singers.) St. Christopher is the patron of athletes. My mom had chosen St. Bernadette, and my dad St. Francis of Assisi (although not because he was a big nature/animal fan.) I didn't feel particularly drawn to St. Cecilia (Not that she's not cool!). I was also supposed to choose a girl. If I was a boy, I would've chosen St. John the Evangelist. 

So I didn't have any hard and fast winners. I started reading saint biographies that I picked up here and there. (When in doubt, go to books, that's what I say.) 

Eventually, I stumbled on a biography of St. Therese that was written for kids. (I didn't know then about the incredibly large amount of books written about her and her family. If I'd picked a saint based on how many books I could read about them, she would've won pretty quickly.) Her life seemed sort of like mine. She grew up with her parents and her sisters. She played with her cousins. She liked going to church. She didn't have visions or die a virgin martyr. She was relatable. And she hadn't died all that long ago, which I thought was sort of interesting. I had thought that saints lived ages ago. The book also mentioned that she entered Carmel on my birthday. 

So I finished the book and that was that. St. Therese was my confirmation saint. 

As I grew up, I began to realize how intensely popular she was. I learned about the 'Little Way', and read more books about her. I didn't read Story of a Soul until after college, though. When I was diagnosed with a type of TB in high school, I remembered that St. Therese had died of it, and hoped not to imitate her that way. She might have died young (she was 24), but I was only 16! 

I liked the Little Way a lot. A lot of people probably say that, but Therese and I grew up in similar circumstances. We were both middle class girls and neither of us was Joan of Arc. I wasn't going to join the army or become a missionary. I didn't think I was capable of great deeds (like Merry in Return of the King). 

The year after my confirmation, St. Therese was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope St. John Paul II. 'The Little Way' was right up there with St. Thomas Aquinas!  I didn't fully grasp the implications of that at the time, but I liked how many people were drawn to this French girl who only left her part of France once in her life. 

At the time, I didn't realize how powerful St. Therese is. Sometimes she's called Our Lady's First Lieutenant. She's an incredible intercessor for us. But most of all, she's human. Really. She did have ecstatic moments, like St. Teresa of Avila, her predecessor in Carmel. She didn't save France on the field of battle, like St. Joan of Arc, one of her favorite saints. But she realized she didn't have to--that in God's garden, there are all sorts of flowers. 

That image, as well as another, resonate powerfully with me. The other is the story of a young Therese:

“At the age of twelve, Therese’s sister Leonie felt she had no further use for her doll dressmaking kit, and stuffed a basket full of materials for making new dresses. Leonie then offered it to her six year old sister, Celine, and her two year old sister, Therese. “Choose what you wish, little sisters,” invited Leonie. Celine took a little ball of wool that pleased her. Therese simply said, “I choose all.” She accepted the basket and all its goods without ceremony. This incident revealed Therese’s attitude toward life. She never did anything by halves; for her it was always all or nothing.
”

I'm a lot like that. I want to choose everything and have everything. St. Therese wrote in A Story of A Soul that she "could not be a saint by halves." And that, more than anything else from her, has been instrumental in my life. She refused God nothing; she took whatever He gave her, and she did it willingly. That might not have mean she liked it. But she did it. 

(Mother Teresa, who chose St. Therese as her name in religious--although spelled differently--had much the same attitude, saying she took from God whatever He gave her.) 

So while my 13 year old self didn't think too hard about her confirmation saint, twenty years later, I'm pretty glad she didn't, because she might have missed the treasure that is St. Therese. 

This post is part of a weeklong series on Women Saints. 

 

Catholicism in the Culture: Sin, Crime, and the Duggars

Earlier this week, I read this article in the Washington Post about Josh Duggar's inappropriate (and quite frankly, gross) actions against several of his sisters and another family friend. That alone isn't worth blogging about, though. What is worth writing about are are similarities and difference between sin and crime--something that the author of this piece doesn't seem to understand. The author seems to think that "repentance" is equal to getting off scot-free, and that there isn't any sort of price to be paid for committing sin, whereas with a crime, there is a cost--jail, usually, or a fine of some sort.

When you treat this as a sin instead of a crime, you let everyone down...The behavior alleged was a crime, not a sin.

Actually, it's both. If I commit murder, I have sinned and committed a crime. Same with theft, abuse, using illegal drugs, etc. There are some things that are sins but aren't crimes, like adultery. You can't go to jail for sleeping with your co-worker's wife. No one's going to lock me up for not observing the sabbath or for taking God's name in vain (at least in the United States).

Let's look at a few terms, here, because the author didn't, and that's a big problem.

First off, what is sin? Here's how the Catechism defines it:

1849 Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as "an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law."121

1850 Sin is an offense against God: "Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight."122 Sin sets itself against God's love for us and turns our hearts away from it. Like the first sin, it is disobedience, a revolt against God through the will to become "like gods,"123 knowing and determining good and evil. Sin is thus "love of oneself even to contempt of God."124 In this proud self- exaltation, sin is diametrically opposed to the obedience of Jesus, which achieves our salvation

There are also different types of sin. 

We see, in this definition of sin, that no sin only hurts one person. Sin is an offense against God. It is opposed to grace. Sin removes grace from your soul, and places you farther from God.

Now, what is crime? According to Merriam-Webster, crime is:

: an illegal act for which someone can be punished by the government

: activity that is against the law : illegal acts in general

: an act that is foolish or wrong

So both sin and crime are about doing things that are wrong, whether by God's law, the law of the state/country/county, or by Natural Moral Law.  Essentially, Natural Moral Law states that even if you never met a Christian, read the Bible, or ever heard of Jesus Christ, there are some things that humans know are intuitively wrong. As Catholicism for Dummies puts it:

Moral law is natural because it’s known by reason — not written in stone or on paper, like the Commandments or the Bible. It’s moral because it applies only to moral acts — actions of human beings that involve a free act of the will. (It doesn’t apply to animals, because they don’t have the use of reason.)

What Josh Duggar did (and he confessed to doing it, so this isn't alleged behavior) is both a sin and a crime. He committed a sin by violating one of God's commandments--sexual acts outside of marriage are wrong. (While the Duggars have some pretty extreme courtship measures, the general message of "no sexual activity until you're married" is a tenant of Catholicism, as well. But full-frontal hugs are allowed, and I never dated with my siblings as a chaperone, etc. The Duggars embrace a pretty hard-core version of purity, which the article discusses.) So that's sin. However, it's also illegal to perform sexual activities on others without their consent, so that's the crime portion of the situation. Both require confession and punishment/penance, but they go about it differently.

If the Duggars were Catholic, they would have strongly suggested that Josh confess this sin (you can't compel a confession. The penitent has to come to it of his own free will and with a proper spirit of contrition), and he would have received a penance.  After the penance was completed, Josh would have been fully absolved from the sin, thus returning to a state of grace and a state of friendship with God. The Catechism says (my emphases)

1468 "The whole power of the sacrament of Penance consists in restoring us to God's grace and joining us with him in an intimate friendship."73 Reconciliation with God is thus the purpose and effect of this sacrament. For those who receive the sacrament of Penance with contrite heart and religious disposition, reconciliation "is usually followed by peace and serenity of conscience with strong spiritual consolation."74 Indeed the sacrament of Reconciliation with God brings about a true "spiritual resurrection," restoration of the dignity and blessings of the life of the children of God, of which the most precious is friendship with God.75

1469 This sacrament reconciles us with the Church. Sin damages or even breaks fraternal communion. The sacrament of Penance repairs or restores it. In this sense it does not simply heal the one restored to ecclesial communion, but has also a revitalizing effect on the life of the Church which suffered from the sin of one of her members.76 Re-established or strengthened in the communion of saints, the sinner is made stronger by the exchange of spiritual goods among all the living members of the Body of Christ, whether still on pilgrimage or already in the heavenly homeland:77

It must be recalled that . . . this reconciliation with God leads, as it were, to other reconciliations, which repair the other breaches caused by sin. The forgiven penitent is reconciled with himself in his inmost being, where he regains his innermost truth. He is reconciled with his brethren whom he has in some way offended and wounded. He is reconciled with the Church. He is reconciled with all creation.78

(The entire section on confession is worth a read, if you're interested, or this post)

So, not only would Josh's sins have been forgiven after confession, but he also would've received grace to strengthen him against committing sin again. (as I tell my first graders--GRACE IS AWESOME.)

Now, that being said--confession heals the person's relationship with God. When criminal activity occurs, the Church believes that the process of law and due process has to happen for the common good of society. For example, if a murderer comes and confesses his sin, the priest will strongly urge that person to confess to the authorities, as well. It's part and parcel of justice, which is a virtue. If you steal, you not only confess it--you have to pay back what you stole.

So, yes, Josh's parents would've had to turn him in to the authorities. What happens after the crime has been admitted is a different thing in different localities, and thus outside the realm of this discussion.

However, the thing to remember is that sin hurts everyone. When you sin, you don't just confess and get off scot free. There has to be penance, there has to be contrition and yes, you have to do your penance. The author of this piece is wrong when she suggests that sin and crime are different things, and that one is more or less serious than the other. Sin and crime are both offenses against other people, and both must be dealt with accordingly, whether sacramentally or judicially.