FD of St. Joanna the Myrrhbearer (as known in the Orthodox Church). Luke names her among women who had been healed of evil spirits and now followed Jesus. Some clue as to the evil spirit from whom she was rescued lies in info that she was the "wife of Chuzza, Herod's steward."
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Thus, among Jesus' inner circle was the wife of a man who served at the right hand of Herod, the despot who had killed John the Baptist and would later conspire in the death of Jesus himself. Therein lies a story!
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Joanna was among the women who "stood at a distance" and watched Jesus die on a cross, and who later returned to the site of his burial with ointments to anoint his mangled body. They found the empty tomb, attended by angels who proclaimed that he had risen.
They hastened to inform the other disciples. But though they had borne faithful witness to Jesus, both in his life and in his passion, and remained by his side when the male disciples fled, they were but women, and so their testimony was initially dismissed as "an idle tale."
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