Reflection for Monday of Holy Week
The fragrance of aromatic nard must have been quite wonderful for it to be so costly. According to today’s Gospel, when Mary poured the perfumed oil on Jesus’ feet, the fragrance filled the whole house. The story of Mary lavishing something costly and beautiful on the dusty feet of Jesus is a symbol of great love in the face of great suffering.
Scripture rarely appeals to our sense of smell. But it is a powerful sense in human beings. As a young boy, I took piano lessons from a matronly spinster named Amy Winning. I don’t think I was consciously aware at the time of the strong perfume she always wore. But many years later, I passed by a woman who wore that same perfume, and immediately Ms. Winning was sitting next to me at the piano bench correcting my many mistakes.
Scripture also engages our senses of hearing and seeing. The suffering servant will not cry out nor make his voice heard in the street — a mark of his humility and willingness to endure the suffering that is heaped on him. He, in turn, does not break the bruised reed or quench the smoldering wick; that is, he does not burden the weak or do anything to smother what little light there might be in a soul or in the world. Yet, his suffering brings light to the nations, to all people everywhere. He opens the eyes of the blind and of all who live in darkness. The psalmist echoes that image of seeing: “The Lord is my light and my salvation.”
But in the Gospel, we are offered the penetrating fragrance throughout the whole house that Mary offers to Jesus. That it completely and immediately engulfs the entire house is a symbol both of her deep love for Jesus but also of the deep and penetrating extent of his love for us. The fruit of Jesus’ suffering would not just be light to the nations and a word of consolation to the weary; it would also be a penetrating fragrance that would fill souls with God’s mercy and mysterious presence beyond what sight and sound can understand.
For reflection: What is the perfumed oil that I have to offer Jesus? What do I have that has cost me dearly but am willing to give freely to Jesus?
Reflection by Abbot Benedict Neenan, OSB
Posted in Daily Reflections, Lenten Resources