Monday of Holy Week

If we are not shocked by the Gospel we have just heard, then maybe that is because we haven’t understood it properly. We have heard how Mary of Bethany anointed our Lord’s feet with costly ointment, or as we might call it, perfume, or scent. It is, of course, a very extravagant act on her part, to take a pound of scent, no small volume, and pour it all simply on our Lord’s feet. It is an enormous quantity of a very expensive commodity, expensive because it is rare, it requires great intensity of labour to procure and distil it, and it comes from a great distance. This is nard, which comes from a plant that grows in the Himalayas. In the other gospels we are told that several of the bystanders grumbled about this extravagance, calling it ‘waste’ and suggesting that it might have been sold for 300 denarii. Now we should stop a moment to think about that. We are used to being told that a denarius is the equivalent of a penny, but in real terms that is not helpful. We must remember that, in one of His parables, our Lord had spoken of a denarius as a reasonable day’s wage for a labourer. Therefore, by that reckoning, 300 denarii would represent the better part of a year’s wages for an ordinary working man. This nard was therefore not only a huge volume, but also far more costly than anything we can imagine using ourselves, even in our most wildly extravagant dreams.

So in the light of this analysis, we ourselves may well not be too indignant at the reaction of some that this was an unjustified waste of something enormously valuable. However, John puts a very different slant on this event. He tells us that the one, and in his account the only one, who complained bitterly about this, was Judas, who protested that the nard should have been sold and the money given to the poor. Now John, writing his gospel in his old age, was not trying to blacken Judas’s name out of hatred for the man who had been responsible for his beloved Master’s betrayal and death, but rather explaining how the whole event brought to light something intrinsically wrong about Judas’s attitude to our Lord.

John comments that Judas made this complaint not because he cared about the poor, but because he loved money and helped himself to the common purse which he had charge of. This is noteworthy. Judas was not as high-minded as he wanted the others to think. This is why our Lord rebukes Judas in the way that He does, defending Mary’s action and her motive in this extraordinary act of extravagant devotion to Him. Nor is it the first time that our Lord says something quite shocking in defence of Mary of Bethany. On another occasion at another celebration in which our Lord and His apostles were present at Martha’s and Mary’s and Lazarus’s home in Bethany, Martha had asked our Lord to rebuke Mary for not helping her, but instead our Lord defended Mary as having chosen the ‘better part’. Now He does something similar and equally unexpected.

We recall that at the very beginning of this passage John had told us that this dinner took place ‘six days before the Passover’. John never tells us details of time without some important reason. On this occasion it is to point forward to what would happen at that fast approaching Passover: it would be the Lord’s own Passover from death to life, His passing from this world to the next, His return to the Father. Hence His describing Mary’s action as a preparation for His burial. It is, of course, an action born of great love; the love of Mary for the One who has just raised her brother Lazarus from the dead. None of this can Judas

appreciate. He is only concerned about the possible profit that might be made from selling the scented ointment.

There is another point worth making. Today is March 25th, which would ordinarily be the solemnity of the Annunciation. We will keep that feast instead on the Monday following the Octave of Easter. Yet although we cannot keep it today on account of Holy Week, we can note the coincidence. In fact, there is an important way of looking at the coincidence of 25th March with other days in this week, but especially with Good Friday and Holy Saturday, which has often been noted over the centuries. However, I am not going to explore those now. Just to point out that there is something to note about today’s coincidence of Monday of Holy Week with March 25th.

We have heard how Mary of Bethany poured out the rich perfume of her ointment upon our Lord’s body on this date, as a sign of her great love for Him and in gratitude for the raising of her brother Lazarus. But on March 25th we recall a greater Mary and a yet greater outpouring of love. For it was on this day that Mary of Nazareth poured forth the perfume of her heart’s intense love for God when she accepted the call to give her womb so that the Son of God would take flesh therein and become her son in order to be our Redeemer.