While she is not exactly an unknown saint, Salome, one of the holy myrrh-bearing women, is someone that has many, many people who consider her as their patron, yet few probably realize that she also has her own individual day of commemoration, as do all of the myrrh-bearing women. In this case, it’s August 3, and the mere fact that she is mentioned so prominently in the Scriptures gives reason enough for us to consider her here today. It’s an amazing thing what the Lord did at the time of his incarnation, gathering together a whole host of people, even family members, that had such virtues, that were so full of the many graces that he would bring to the world, that were all there together at one time. This has happened at other times in the life of the Church, too. One only has to think about many of the fathers of the Church who lived in close proximity to one another. Whenever the Lord needed something done, he certainly arranged for the right people to be there to do it.

In this case, we speak of Salome. Now, Salome was a daughter of righteous Joseph, St. Joseph, our Lord Jesus Christ’s foster father, and another woman named Salome. Out of this union there were a total of seven children that were produced. We had James and Joses and Jude and Symeon, and three daughters, Esther, Martha, and our Salome. Of course, out of this group, one of them, James, became an apostle of the 70 and first bishop of Jerusalem. Another one, Jude, became one of the inner circle, if you will, of the Lord, being one of his twelve disciples. When, of course, Joseph, who was a widower at that time, because he lost his wife Salome, brought home his betrothed, Mary, the Theotokos, well, Jude and James were probably still living at home.

Later on, Salome would marry a man named Zebedee, who is mentioned in the Scriptures, who was a fisherman, although he seems to disappear before the Lord’s passion, so we’re not sure exactly how long he lived or what happened to him. But we do know that from that illustrious pairing there came another James and John, and both of these would be known to the Church as the sons of thunder. So in effect, you had James the brother of the Lord who was the uncle of James the son of Zebedee and Salome.

Now the Lord also called these two right after he called Andrew and Simon Peter. He also saw them fishing, and they immediately gave up their nets and went to follow him. Salome, of course, was one of the myrrh-bearing women who was present at all of the critical times of the Lord’s life. They were certainly there at the foot of the cross; we know this. And Salome was also one to witness the resurrection. So her importance lies not, as it does in so many of the lives of the saints, in great exploits and miracles and all these sorts of things that many of our greatest saints do to get themselves under the watchful eye of the universal Church. Instead, she was one who was simply chosen.

She was chosen to be there, no doubt for her humility, for her love and her desire to follow Christ, whom she eventually recognized as the Messiah, but early on we know that she actually presented her two sons to the Lord so that they wanted to ask that both of them be able to sit on his right and left sides when he came into his kingdom. So Salome was most likely thinking, as so many others were at one time, that the Lord’s kingdom was going to be one of civil and civic rule, that it was going to be a kingdom of this world.

Well, no doubt by the time of the resurrection, she had come to understand exactly what the Lord’s kingdom was going to be, and history has accorded her such a wonderful place as one of the myrrh-bearing women, one of the early, strong, illustrious women who gave testimony to all these things they saw that the Lord did, and especially as witnesses to his resurrection. Let us honor her today, as we do all of the myrrh-bearing women, as we do all of the family members of our Lord, because we know that Salome, who once stood at the tomb of our Lord with great longing now stands with him, face to face, in heaven.