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Mary? Mary Who? Which Mary?

April 9, 2022

Ezekiel 37:21–28 | John 11:45–53 | Psalm 85:1–7

In my Irish Catholic family, I can count at least six immediate Aunt Marys:  my Mom’s sister Aunt Mary Sommer, my Dad’s sister Aunt Mary Gumper, two of their sisters-in-law: my Aunt Mary McGarry and my Aunt Mary Bowe, and my husband John’s revered and perhaps quintessential Aunt Mary Hennedy. Even I, born on December 9 (the day after 1854’s then-newly announced Feast of the Immaculate Conception which exempts Christ’s Virgin Mother Mary from having been born with St. Augustine’s curse of original sin), had to be, and was, baptized Mary.

My prescient Mom, however, insisted I be known as Marie. So on all of my school records, my driver’s licenses, you name it: I’m Marie. But given that official name on my birth certificate, I had to be married 58 years ago as “Mary – alias Marie.” Even our will (if not the Trust for our house) lists me both ways!  But I digress….

“Many of the Jews who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did believed in him.”

John’s gospel begins today by referring to “Mary,” a person whose significance Jesus and his friends apparently took for granted. Yet her identity and even presence in the story of Jesus has long seemed rather hazy — if not downright suspect — to those of us who’ve read about her in most of the last two millennia. Lately, I’ve begun to wonder why.

“But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what he had done [raised Lazarus from the dead],” continues this story of a religious establishment’s plot to stay in power by outing Christ as a disgrace to its Roman law-abiding Jews. For, as that year’s high priest Caiphas so cynically explains to his pusillanimous brethren: “You know nothing at all. You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed. . .  So from that day on they planned to put him to death.”

Clever plan! And it worked – at least until the Romans later destroyed the Temple and Jews were repeatedly dispersed for two millennia. Is it a coincidence that the institutionalized, post-Constantine Roman Church – its leaders by then all male and celibate – has taught us largely to see only two Marys: of course, there’s Christ’s pure and long-suffering mother and, by the way, there’s Mary Magdalene: the repentant whore (who did stand at of the cross).

Who then is Mary of Bethany? That sister to Martha and Lazarus is at least thrice esteemed:

1. She chose the better part by sitting at Christ’s feet listening to Him while Martha served the supper.
2. She knew enough to anoint his feet with 300 denaris-worth of precious oils before his final trip to Jerusalem and Calvary.
3. And early on Easter Sunday morning (having witnessed Christ’s pre-Passover burial after his crucifixion on Friday), she brought yet more oils to anoint his body, found the stone rolled back, recognized the apparent gardener when he called her by her name “Mary!” and responded “Rabboni [teacher]!” and then she ran to share with (her fellow?) Apostles the good news of Christ’s Resurrection.

Are we missing something here?

Marie Hennedy