Heritage

Saint Martha and Saint Joan

Proposals for the commemoration of two women who shaped the history of their times.

Resolved, That the Convention of the Diocese of El Camino Real request the General Convention of the Episcopal Church to include in the calendar of Lesser Feasts and Fasts Joan of Arc on May 30th, and the Confession of Martha on April 13th.

Rationale: Saint Joan of Arc

In addition to Joan of Arc's worthiness as an exemplary Christian life, and the Confession of Martha as a signal event in the Gospel story, their inclusion will also help to redress the gender imbalance of the calendar which now has approximately six times more men than women. Joan of Arc stands out in history, as recognizable to any school child as Davy Crockett or Johnny Appleseed, astonishing in both her valor and her commonsense, and riding up the bloody, plagueridden 15th century like a star.

She is the stuff of legend, having empowered a nation and chosen its king, only to be condemned by the Inquisition and burned to death by the secular English authorities at the age of nineteen. Her story and the transcripts of her trial still inspire readers as they have inspired writers from Mark Twain to Winston Churchill. George Bernard Shaw described Joan of Arc as "the most notable Warrior Saint in the Christian calendar" in the Preface to his play Saint Joan, and few would argue with him. However, she is not in all Christian calendars.

The well-documented life of Joan of Arc places her fully within the guidelines given by the Calendar Committee of the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music of the General Convention. Her life and death show heroic faith in every sense of both words. Her own words from the trial transcript and those of her contemporaries from the trial of rehabilitation testify to her love of God and of her fellow human beings, her goodness of life, her joyousness, her service to others for Christ's sake, and her devotion. She has long been recognized and commemorated by the faithful; her reputation even after death gave rise to the trial of rehabilitation and reversal of the first decree. In the years that have followed, regardless of the various ends to which her image has been applied, she has remained first and foremost a woman of faith, one who remained true to her calling and her conscience though it cost her life.

It is also worth noting that her youth would give an inclusion in Lesser Feasts and Fasts special significance to the young. She exemplifies the faith and vision of adolescence, and her valor in speech and action make her particularly important to young women who are seeking the courage to live out their faith.

Suggested Date, Readings and Collect:

May 30th, which is the day Joan of Arc died, is the proposed commemorative date.

The proposed readings are:

Sketch of Person to be Commemorated:

Born in the Vosges mountains of Lorraine about 1412, Joan of Arc was the daughter of a well-to-do peasant. She lived during the Hundred Years War, and when she was about fourteen she began to hear voices which she identified as the voices of Catherine of Alexandria and Margaret of Antioch, both women saints who had cults in France in the Middle Ages. With them came the voice of Michael the Archangel, the victorious warrior of heaven.

After the battle of Agincourt, and following the deaths of Henry V of England and Charles VI of France, English armies under the duke of Bedford fought a series of successful campaigns and had taken a number of the fortified towns of France. Increasingly, roving bands of soldiers had come through the Lorraine area of France and the people lived in fear and demoralization. Joan's voices told her it was her mission to drive the English out of France and the voices grew more insistent until she set about to do it.

She became so convinced of her purpose that, although she was an illiterate peasant girl, she was able to persuade local governors, and seasoned military men to follow her. Her determination gave hope and new purpose to the dispirited French supporters. Even the ambivalent Dauphin (heir apparent to the French throne) was impressed enough to give her the authority, soldiers, and supplies she needed.

Joan asked for troops to relieve the besieged city of Orleans and in April of 1429, she led an army, riding ahead in full armor. Orleans was saved and there is no doubt that her military guidance and the force of her character made the difference. She was wounded and fought on, and that further increased her popularity. Although still a girl in her teens, she proved to be an excellent military strategist who used modern tactics while the rest of Europe continued to make war in the mind-set of the Middle Ages.

In July, she led the Dauphin to be crowned at Rheims. Shortly after this, the climate around her began to change. She became the object of jealousy, suspicion and misunderstanding in the male atmosphere of army, court and church. After a failed attack on Paris, Joan was captured by Burgundian forces and sold to the English. The King of France made no attempt to save her. She was imprisoned and tried in an ecclesiastical "kangaroo" court for witchcraft and heresy.

She was relentlessly examined and given no advocate but she made a guileless, strong and spirited defense on her own. The trial transcripts are available and she almost leaps off the page with her clear, strong, commonsensical responses. She bested and bewildered the great theological minds of her generation with straightforward responses such as, "Consider well your saying you are my judge, for you are assuming a great burden, and you burden me too greatly." When challenged about her attire, she said, "I was many times admonished to wear women's clothing: I refused... As to other womanly duties, there are enough other women to perform them." When asked about an attempted escape she responded, "It is true that I have wished, and that I still wish, what is permissible for any captive, to escape." When asked how she knew the authenticity of her voices and visions, she replied, "I know it by revelation as well as I know you are before me now."

Essentially the issue was one of authority. The issue was whether she placed authority in the church or in her own conscience. When forced to choose, she chose the latter. On being asked if she was subject to ecclesiastical hierarchy, she responded, "Yes, but our Lord must be served first." The Inquisition cried heresy and Joan's fate was sealed. Near the end of her trial she said, "If I were already judged and saw the fire lit, and the bundles of sticks ready and the executioners ready to light the fire, and even if I were within the fire, I would nevertheless not say anything other. I would maintain unto death what I have said at this trial."

Despite the centuries, the story of Joan of Arc still speaks directly to the human soul. She speaks first to the child in us, for she was a child when she first heard her voices and she reminds us of the untrammeled faith of the young. She speaks to us of bravery, valor and the astounding possibilities open to those who follow God's call. She speaks of female heroism and the neglected leadership of women. She speaks of all holy people who have been vilified in their own time while holding out the hope of eventual vindication. But she speaks most clearly and poignantly of the inviolability of the human soul against any temporal authority. As she was being burned at Rouen, she called for a cross which she held before her as she called over and over again the name of Jesus. A secretary to Henry VI of England who witnessed the execution lamented as he left the scene, and prophesied as he did: "We are lost," he said, "for we have burned a saint."

Rationale: The Confession of Martha

Each year on January 18th, the Episcopal Church remembers a particular event. It is called the Confession of Peter and we commemorate the moment when Peter responded to the questioning Jesus with the words, "You are the Messiah." (Mark 8:29 1 ) From that response Peter is designated as the rock on which Jesus will build the church. However, our tradition with its patriarchal bias omitted a similar confession and it is only in this century that a Roman Catholic theologian, Raymond E. Brown, S.S., has pointed out that it ranks with Peter's. It is the confession of Martha and it is found in John 11:27. When Jesus queried Martha about her belief, she responded, "Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world."

Martha and Mary of Bethany have a shared feast day on July 29th, and Peter and Paul have a shared date commemorating them as well (June 29th). But the Confession of Martha stands alongside the Confession of Peter and warrants inclusion on its own as a signal event. What we know of Martha from the scriptures places her fully within the guidelines given by the Calendar Committee of the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music of the General Convention. Her confession shows heroic faith especially in the light of the circumstances in which it was made (following the death of Lazarus).We learn in John 11:5 that Jesus loved Martha and her siblings.

Her friendship and hospitality toward our Lord indicate that the qualities of love, goodness, and joyousness were there as well. Her home was repeatedly a place of hospitality for our Lord. She embodied, perhaps more than any other in scripture, devotion and service to others for Christ's sake.

If asked what they remember about Martha of Bethany, most Christians would recall from Luke's Gospel (Luke 10:38-42) that Martha and Mary were two women who were friends of Jesus, and that during a visit in their home Martha was reprimanded for asking that her sister help in the kitchen rather than sit and listen to Jesus' teachings. Jesus said Mary had "chosen the better part." We don't usually remember Martha as the one who recognized Jesus as the Christ but rather as a harried, distracted hostess. Some have viewed Martha as an example of the active life as opposed to the contemplative life which Mary represents. But to remember her only in her frustrated, admonished moment would be akin to remembering Peter only when Jesus said to him, "Get behind me, Satan!"

The image of Martha for believers was once much larger than it is in our times. In the Middle Ages, there was keen interest in Martha but not as the reproved hostess absorbed in small details. She was perceived as a close friend of Jesus, an independent woman, a spiritual powerhouse. According to the German theologian, Elisabeth Moltmann Wendel , there was a popular book of the lives of the saints during the Middle Ages which was even better known than scripture (in part because it was in the vernacular and the Bible was in Latin.) It was sometimes termed the "little people's Bible" and it told the legend of St. Martha, claiming she had come on a boat to Provence, France, with Lazarus and Mary Magdalene. In France she had begun a career preaching the Gospel.

Her wisdom and gentleness were so profound that she is reputed to have subdued a powerful dragon in Tarascon by splashing him with holy water and then wrapping him with the cords of her sash or girdle. There are a number of artistic depictions of her standing over a dragon with the cords of her girdle wrapping the beast. Images of St. Martha subduing the dragon once rivaled images of St. George, though she did not overcome the beast with weapons and physical strength; she overcame the dragon with faith and gentleness. She exemplified defeating the underground destructive forces of the world in a new way, and liturgical art depicting her triumph flourished in Germany, France, and Italy.

The great Dominican painter, Fra Angelico, painted an remarkable scene in the monastery of St. Marco in Florence, Italy, showing Martha with Jesus and the other disciples in the garden of Gethsemene. Jesus is praying with his arms uplifted and below him the male disciples have fallen asleep. At the base of the fresco, wide awake and identified by their names in their halos, are the two sisters of Bethany. Mary is shown reading (representing the contemplative life) but Martha is watching, alert, with her hands uplifted in prayer. She of all the followers is the one who has taken on the concerns of our Lord as her own and it is she who shares Christ's posture of prayer.

In the last few centuries, we have lost a full appreciation of Martha of Bethany. It is time that the contribution of her confession be recognized by the Church.

Suggested Date, Readings and Collect:

The proposed commemorative date for the Confession of Martha is April 13th. This date falls around the midpoint of the days in which Easter occurs. Martha's confession was made in the period prior to Passover but since it occurs at the raising of Lazarus, an Easter theme of resurrection predominates the readings. An April 13th date allows that some years the commemoration will fall in Lent and Holy Week, but other years it will fall within the Easter season, thereby fulfilling both the historical and thematic criteria in varying years.

Sketch of Person/Event to be Commemorated:

Martha of Bethany was a close friend of Jesus, one who provided food, hospitality, and the support and solace of friendship for him. But she also understood who he was and what he was doing in the world. This is apparent in a brief exchange of words recounted in the Gospel of John in which Martha confessed Jesus as the Christ.

Martha's confession sprang from her deep inner conviction and was forged in the events of the previous week. Earlier that week, Martha and her sister Mary had suffered the death of their brother, Lazarus. They were obviously a close family and were all friends with Jesus. From what we know of the two sisters, we may assume that at least a fair proportion of the work load fell on Martha; she was a "can do" kind of person. She would have had to wash and prepare the body, binding it in cloths as was the custom. She would also have prepared the tomb, which was a cave. No doubt all of this was still very much on her mind. It was from this recent experience that she approached Jesus.

Martha's confession of faith is the fifth that is recorded in the Gospel of John up to that point. The first is Nathanael's hailing Jesus as "Son of God" and "King of Israel." Next is the Samaritans acknowledgment of Jesus as "Savior of the world." The third confession is when Peter calls him "the Holy One of God," and the fourth is when the man born blind confesses Jesus as the "Son of Man."

What makes Martha's confession unusually perceptive is her statement that "you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world." She has recognized that the Messiah's reign has already begun. Despite her pain and grief over the death of her brother, she sees a future world being born. For her, Jesus is not a static figurehead but one who is bringing the powers of the age-to-come into effect. In him, she sees that the reign of God is now at work.

What does the confession of Martha say to us across the centuries? She reminds us to look beyond, at times even from the myopia of our personal pain, and see God's hand "at work in the world around us." She urges us toward a larger vision. It is one that includes new life emerging from places of pain, from tombs we may have carefully tended. These need not be literal graves but can be where we have buried hopes, dreams, possibilities. Her faith carried her beyond the forces of destruction and death into understanding the larger purposes of God's love. She shows us what it means to be friends with Christ, welcoming into our broken hearts and bereft homes God's promise of new and abundant life.

Respectfully submitted,
The Rev. Penelope Duckworth

Further Reading: Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel, The Women Around Jesus (Crossroad: New York, 1997) and the Earl Lectures, Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley CA.

All biblical quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version.