Monday of Holy Week

Lectionary: 257

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. 

I know little about fragrant oils but a liter sounds like an awful lot to pour over a man's feet. However, I have smelled myrrh and it's a powerful scent. It's easy to imagine how "the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil." The neighbors down the street must have noticed. And the astonishment of those in the room; and the complaint of at least one of them. 

Myrrh was used to anoint dead bodies, which were immediately buried or entombed. Mary's odd behavior, outrageous expenditure, and invasive odor certainly upset more than a few people. If Judas was the only one to object, the rest may have been too surprised, polite, or cowed by the presence of the Master to complain about it.

However, we should notice that Nicodemus did something similar when he attended the Lord's entombment several days later. 

"The one who had first come to him at night also came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes weighing about one hundred pounds."

That's enough for an entire village of corpses! 

Their excess is heavy with meaning for us. They remind us of Isaiah's proclamation in today's first reading: 

Here is my servant whom I uphold,

my chosen one with whom I am pleased....

This man, whose presence overwhelms us is the same Cloud of Glory that overwhelmed the priests in Solomon's temple. He has come from God and is returning to God. He is the One who was with God in the beginning, and is God. (John 1:1-2) He is the One through whom all things came to be, and he is with us here. 

This overpowering myrrh smells of heaven itself, which may be initially repulsive -- as death and corpses and futility and waste are repulsive. But that is because we do not understand the ways of God. His light is too bright for blind eyes; and his voice, too loud for those who don't listen. 

Jesus, by his human nature and his sacrifice has made our humanity beautiful in God's sight, and by his compassionate divinity has made the divine delightful to our taste, smell, touch, hearing, and sight. But Jesus is a cultivated taste, meant for everyone though welcomed by few. 

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.