Lazarus: Name Day and Patron Saint

St Lazarus lived in Bethany, near Jerusalem, with his sisters Martha and Mary, and the Gospel calls him the friend of Christ. When he fell ill and died, the Lord came to Bethany after Lazarus had already lain four days in the tomb, and called him back to life (John 11). The Church keeps this miracle on Lazarus Saturday, the Saturday before Palm Sunday, a bright and joyful feast at the threshold of Holy Week. Its hymns see in the raising of Lazarus a foretaste of Christ’s own Resurrection eight days later and of the resurrection of the righteous on the Last Day, and they call Lazarus the first-fruits of the renewal of the world. Lazarus was with the Lord again when Jesus came back to Bethany six days before the Passover. Tradition holds that after his raising he lived thirty more years as a bishop on the island of Cyprus, where he spread the Christian faith and fell asleep in peace. His relics were later found at Kiteia (Kition) in a marble coffin inscribed “Lazarus of the Four-Days, the friend of Christ”, and in 898 the emperor Leo the Wise had them brought to Constantinople; this translation is remembered on 17 October. The faithful ask his prayers when they grieve for the dead and when they face sickness and death themselves, trusting in Christ, who told Martha, “I am the resurrection, and the life.”

What the faithful pray for

• comfort for those who mourn the dead
• the sick and the dying
• steadfast hope in the resurrection
• true friendship with Christ