In today’s Gospel (John 12: 1-11), Jesus once again visits his friends Martha, Mary, and Lazarus at their house just six days before the Passover. In past Gospel accounts, we observe Mary always sitting at Jesus’ feet absorbed in his presence. Some consider her passive as compared to the hustle-bustle activity of her sister Martha; others see her as actively present to the Word of God, soaking in Light, Love and Life. But in today’s reading, she switches gears. We see her in the “doing” mode, spilling “a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard” over Jesus’ feet and then drying them with her hair. The aromatic fragrance of the oil filled the house. Mary had grown in love with Jesus and her heart was grateful to him for just recently bringing her brother Lazarus back to life. This ignited her grateful heart to return the love to Jesus she had witnessed. Jesus taught her love and by her generous act of returning love, she graduates from disciple to teacher, thus showing us the way to continue Jesus’ mission.
Thomas Keating, in his book The Mystery of Christ, says that in Mary’s anointing Jesus’ feet, “she manifests the same disposition of total self-giving that he is about to manifest on the cross. She had learned from Jesus how to throw herself away and become like God…To perpetuate Mary’s memory is to fill the whole world with the perfume of God’s love, the love that is totally self-giving. In the concrete, it is to anoint the poor and the afflicted, the favored members of Christ’s Body, with this love.”
Judas comes to the forefront and questions the extravagant waste of the perfume when it could be used for the service of the poor. This provides another teaching opportunity for Jesus. Jesus’ response -“Leave her alone. Let her keep this for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me”- indicates Mary has chosen the right path and is part of the redemptive act for the world about to take place. Through her anointing of Jesus, she predicts Jesus’ washing the disciples’ feet and his total act of self-giving on the cross.
As I ponder this beautiful Gospel story, I realize the importance of right relationship in community. Jesus unites all present in the House of Bethany into a communion of love. Judas, the thief and betrayer, cannot understand this communion because of his greed and is thus isolated from the true understanding of total self-giving.
Joan Chittister, in her book, The Monastery of the Heart, captures the essence of this Gospel’s message:
“What is central is that together
we use our goods
for something greater than ourselves,
that we “do not store up grain in barns,”
as the scriptures say,
for our own security alone,
but use the profits of our labor
for the good of others, as well.
It is a process of making
all of human community real,
and of doing it
out of a common vision
and one heart,
in whatever form is available-
so that the spirit of community
that is Benedictine to its core
may spread like a holy plague
throughout the world.”
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