Mary sat at home

The following reflection for Holy Saturday was contributed by Pray Tell commenter, Jim McKay. –Editor

On Lazarus Sunday the abridged version of St John’s account of the Resurrection of Lazarus was read in my parish. Martha and Lazarus were prominent, but Mary’s part was whittled down to a terse “Mary sat at home.”

In many ways, this is where Mary is today. We used to read all four accounts of the anointing of Jesus in the ten days before Easter; now we read only St John’s. We used to sing antiphons about the women who anointed the feet of Jesus during Holy Thursday’s washing of the feet; now we sing only about St Peter. This near silence exists even though the gospels of St Mark and St Matthew tell us “wherever the gospel is proclaimed to the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”

Is this silence is a good thing? The second day of the Triduum is a day of silence. The women watched as Jesus was laid in his tomb, and went home for the Sabbath. As God rested on the seventh day, as Jesus rested in the tomb, the women sat at home waiting for the next day. When they went the next day to the tomb to complete the burial rites, they were the first to discover the Resurrection.

Perhaps that is why Mary sat at home while Lazarus lay in the tomb. She fulfills the custom of sitting in mourning, not expecting the joy of seeing her brother raised from the dead. She does not expect to encounter the Lord. But when Jesus comes, she discovers new life in her brother and she lavishes her expensive perfume on the feet of Jesus with joy. From the silent sitting, she rises to glorify the Lord.

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2 responses to “Mary sat at home”

  1. Jack Rakosky

    At the beginning of the public ministry (Mark 1:31), Jesus cures Peter’s mother-in-law and she begins to “serve.” At the death of Jesus (Mark 15:41), “These women had followed him when he was in Galilee and ministered to him.” These are the only persons other than Jesus and the angels to whom Mark applies the word from which we get deacon.

    Mark pre-shadows the history of Christianity: while the men spend their time in the public limelight, fight among themselves about who is the greatest and think they know better than Jesus what he should do, the women quietly build Christianity at home in the background. Their foundation role becomes apparent when being public becomes too dangerous for the men: we see them at the cross, at the tomb, and as martyrs in the arena.

    Rodney Stark, a prominent sociologist of religion, spent about a decade with his hobby of explaining The Rise of Christianity in terms of modern sociological theory. Women are essential to his explanation. Christianity undid the sex ratio which heavily favored men in the Roman world through female infanticide. The greater number of women in Christianity freed them from being treated as “scarce goods” opening up roles as widows, and virgins as well as making the role of wife and mother more attractive through condemnation of divorce, incest, marital infidelity and polygamy.

    “A population’s capacity to reproduce is a function of the proportion of that population consisting of women in their child bearing years, and the Greco-Roman world had an acute shortage of women.” Christianity triumphed in part because Christians were more fertile. Stark maintains more Christians survived plagues and illnesses because of its care of the sick and vulnerable, a task largely done by women.

    So while male Christian leaders were competing among themselves in public for status, wealth and power, the women at home were growing Christianity.

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  2. Jack Rakosky

    In today’s world, women are still the better Christians. They not only do more than their fair share in the home, they also do more than their fair share in maintaining our congregations even when excluded from many managerial roles.

    However, the world has dramatically changed in the last half century. In all advanced economies, women no long “sit” at home. They have increased their paid employment out of the home while decreasing their housework but not care of children and family members. Men have decreased their paid employment in the market place while increasing their housework (moderately). In other words men and women are converging in their shares of paid and unpaid work, their public and home roles.

    https://praytell.blog/index.php/2011/03/28/television-time-use-lent-and-the-divine-office/

    The single item most highly correlated with all the social and economic changes in all these advance economies is the acceptance of women as public leaders!

    Until recently the Muslim world has been the large exception to accepting the changes of the modern economy. Extremists there have been very hostile to changes in the role of women. Until recently there were not the generational changes in values among young people in the Arab world that we have seen in advanced economies over the last five decades. But look at the political revolutions in the Arab world on the TV screen. They are young people seeking a better life. They are not only secular young people but religious young people. They are not only young males, they are young women.

    The hopefully peaceful competition between Christianity and Islam for the women who are the future of both will depend upon which creates a vision of women (and men) that combines the home and life values of the past (secularism and religions without children are headed for extinction) and the expression of very public spiritual leadership in religious, civic, and business environments.

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