Let's pour the perfumed oil. Now!


Monday in Holy Week

Is 42:1-7; Jn 12:1-11


The message of today’s Gospel is simple and direct: the time has finally come. The time that we have been waiting for and preparing ourselves for has finally arrived. We cannot keep postponing any more. The moment of our conversion is now. The aim of the sacrifices and penances  - our extra effort to pray, our attention to be a bit more generous and our abstinence and fasting - that we have been doing throughout these forty days was to facilitate our conversion towards Jesus.

Today, with Mary we are to pour our whole selves and anything that is dear to us generously onto Jesus’s feet. Keeping nothing for ourselves and giving up all that is keeping us from turning towards God. We might be tempted, like the Pharisees to direct our attention elsewhere, to postpone our act of generosity towards Jesus. We might be tempted to wait for a better moment to amend our life, perhaps that moment when it really comes from the heart or when we know that it would have more lasting effects. Perhaps we might not feel much in the mood of it yet and on and on, like those who wait for the perfect time to trade in stocks and shares on Wall Street.

But business with Jesus follows a completely different logic. We can see this already in the first reading, where we read part of what is known as the Song of the Suffering Servant. Jesus does not 
come in pomp but in humility; he does not come with a lot of noise but quietly; he does not force himself upon us but rather invites us towards him.

In these words of Isaiah we see Jesus himself who came to:
To open the eyes of the blind,
to bring out prisoners from confinement,
and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness.
So today we are asked to reflect upon the generous act that Mary did of pouring the precious perfumed oil on Jesus's feet. What part of myself am I still keeping to myself and which I still refuse to give to God? What can be the next move that I need to do to make this possible even if I am finding it too hard to do so?

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