Monday of Holy Week 2012

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/040212.cfm

Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil
made from genuine aromatic nard
and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair;
the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. 

Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus, appears as a prophetess in today's gospel. The sense of smell is perhaps the most demanding and evocative of our five senses, and when the house fills with the scent of her oil the company feels the approach of death. All but Jesus are  upset by what she has done. How could she dare to pour this costly oil used only for burial over the Master's feet? What kind of game is she playing? 


No doubt, some will suspect her motives and those of Jesus. What's going on between these two, that he does not scold her, that he even welcomes her advances? But rather than distracting him from his terrible destiny her prophetic gesture intensifies Jesus' longing for its consummation. 

‘I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! (Luke 12:49)

Mary of Bethany, like the Mary who is called "The Mother of the Lord" in Saint John's Gospel, represents the Jewish people and the city of Jerusalem who await the day of deliverance. She is the faithful and beloved "consort" of God who is eager for his affectionate attention and his saving work. 
Mary's literary tradition, which I have often cited in this blog, begins with Hosea and his unfaithful wife Gomer. Isaiah and Ezekiel make full use of that erotic, connubial imagery which climaxes in the Old Testament with The Song of Songs. Saint Paul will encourage his disciples to love their wives as Christ loves his Church, and the Book of Revelations will celebrate the Marriage of the Lamb. 


Hoping to celebrate the gift of celibacy when our contemporaries are besotted with sexual obsessions, I wrote the following: 

to Mary of Bethany, Lady Chastity

Sit here quietly I pray
I offer you my hand
I know you will prefer to stay
To company this man

I offered you my hand
As more to follow than to guide
To company this man
Simply biding at his side

I neither follow nor can guide
Without the touch of flesh
I need to stay here by your side
In quest like Gilgamesh

Bereft the touch of flesh
Of carnal Enkidu his friend,
The pious Gilgamesh
Would even deities offend

With Enkidu, his mortal friend
He wrestled night and day
And even deities forfend
To mediate their fray

They wrestled night and day
Till loathing morphed to amity
Immediate their fray
Resolved intense affinity

And loathing morphed to amity
And coped with earthy lust
Resolved intense affinities
Found goodness in the dust.

You coped with earthy lust,
Your tender hands to hold and bind
Find goodness in my dust
And heal the jaded eyes gone blind.

You tender hands to hold and bind
And soothing touch my face
They heal the jaded eyes gone blind
I look upon your grace

And soothing touch your face.
I know I must prefer to stay
And look upon your grace.
Sit here quietly you pray.