The first woman disciple of Jesus named Mary is, of course, His Mother, Mary, the Queen of Heaven and Earth.
Mary was the daughter of St. Joachim and St. Anne. When She was three years old Her parents took Her to the Jewish temple in Jerusalem to be raised there in keeping to St. Anne’s promise to God that if she bears a child she will offer the child to Him.
On His crucifixion and before giving up His life, Jesus entrusted Mary to His Apostle John. Jesus has no siblings who can take Mary when He dies and He chose John, the beloved disciple, to take care of Mary. “From then on,” according to Scriptures, “John took Mary with him.”
The second woman disciple named Mary is Mary Clopas or Mary of Alphaeus. Mary Clopas is the mother of Apostles James and Judas Thaddeus. Alphaeus is brother of St. Joseph, Jesus’s foster father.
Being a sister-in-law of Jesus’ parents, Mary of Alphaeus had close relationship with His Mother Mary. Thus, at the crucifixion of Jesus, Mary Clopas, along with the Apostle John, was beside Mary assisting Her in Her own agony.
Mary’s parents, Joachim and Anne, lived right about at the same time and place in Nazareth with Alphaeus and St. Joseph.
Mary Clopas had two other older sons: Simon and Joses (or Joseph) but they did not become Jesus’s disciples.
While Simon later became a believer and follower of Jesus, Joses did not. He remained bitter over the fact that their father Alphaeus died a desperate man because he felt his family has become a laughing stock in Nazareth when his two sons James and Judas Thaddeus followed Jesus who was considered insane, or a mad man, in their own hometown.
The third Mary is Mary Salome, the mother of the Apostles James and John of Zebedee. Mary Salome was known for her request to Jesus to make her sons sit one at his left and one at His right in His Kingdom.
The fourth Mary is the more popular, and more controversial Mary, Mary of Magdala, or Mary Magdalene. She was identified in the Bible as a “prostitute” from whom Jesus cast out seven demon spirits. Mary Magdalene is the Mary sister of Martha and Lazarus. She was the woman who poured perfume, wet with her tears, and wiped with her hair Jesus feet while He was a guest in a pharisee’s house.
