Do you ever wonder how Jesus and His twelve apostles managed to make ends meet while He was criss-crossing Galilee and other parts of the Jewish region? Jesus probably had been a carpenter, since that is what his father, Joseph, did. But there is no suggestion in the Gospels that He continued that line of work after He started His public ministry. Some of the Twelve also had previous jobs-- as fishermen, tax collectors and such-- but we don't see them doing that after they start to follow Jesus. When Jesus sends His disciples out in pairs, He tells them to stay in the houses where they are welcomed, which presumably included both "board" and "room." We can suppose that from time to time people welcomed Jesus and His followers (or at least some of them) in the same way. But what about the rest of the time during the three years when the Son of Man had nowhere to rest His head? In today's Gospel (Lk 8: 1-3) we get a glimpse at the answer: Jesus and the Twelve were provided for by the women who followed Jesus "out of their resources." In other words, they paid the bills. Nor was their following-- and providing for-- Jesus a short-term thing. Aftre Jesus is crucified, we see two of the women specifically named in today's reading (Mary Magdalene and Joanna) going to Jesus' grave to annoint His body and being the first witnesses to His resurrection. They must have followed Him throughout Galilee, and to His cross, since they were there to annoint Him. While we know much-less about the women who followed Jesus than we do about the men, from whose point of view the Gospels were written, after all, it seems like Jesus' mission depended for its success just as much on the participation of women as it did on the participation of men. And while we see the men slinking off or running away in terror, and lacking in faith, and being skeptical of Jesus' instructions (think about the feeding of the 3,000), we never see women doing any of those things-- and you can bet that the male authors of the Gospels would have noted those failings if they had observed them. We live in a time when the role of women in the Church is the subject of considerable contemplation, debate, discussion and prayer. Even a casual observer can see that most of the workers (and Mass attenders) in the Church are female, although their efforts tend to be underplayed (so what else is new?). So shouldn't women have a much-greater amount of influence in the organization? A look at history suggests that the answer is yes. After all, where would Jesus have been without the faithful women who paid the bills?