For all of us who had turned back to our Lord Jesus Christ and had come before Him in our sinfulness,found that He still loved us as on the day we were born. No severe punishment, no torturous penance. Our separation from His love, held captive by our sins was punishment enough. He simply embraced us, brought light into our darkness and restored us as heirs to the Heavenly Kingdom. This is the love of our God!
Yet do we perfume His feet in our love and thanksgiving? So that we bring anyone and everyone’s attention to Jesus our Lord. Ah so this their God? See how they bow down lovingly at His feet, how they move gracefully to anoint his feet with peace we lack, with joy we do not seem to possess. See how He looks upon them with great love and tenderness, I want that relationship too!
Or we can simply look inwards and think to ourselves that we are deserving of such love. Look only to what we lack and how we will fill that emptiness with our worldliness! Is this how we pay tribute to our Lord? With ingratitude and selfishness? Love is never to be kept within one’s own heart. It is always to be given away and then we will find it never runs dry. For those who keep it tightly hidden, will find they held on to nothing.
Lord Jesus thank You for your love and mercy in my life. Let me bring the light You have brought into my life and may it shine for all the world to see. Amen
First reading
Isaiah 42:1-7 †
Here is my chosen one in whom my soul delights
Here is my servant whom I uphold,
my chosen one in whom my soul delights.
I have endowed him with my spirit
that he may bring true justice to the nations.
He does not cry out or shout aloud,
or make his voice heard in the streets.
He does not break the crushed reed,
nor quench the wavering flame.
Faithfully he brings true justice; he will neither waver, nor be crushed until true justice is established on earth, for the islands are awaiting his law.
Thus says God, the Lord,
he who created the heavens and spread them out, who gave shape to the earth and what comes from it, who gave breath to its people and life to the creatures that move in it:
‘I, the Lord, have called you to serve the cause of right; I have taken you by the hand and formed you; I have appointed you as covenant of the people and light of the nations, ‘to open the eyes of the blind,
to free captives from prison,
and those who live in darkness from the dungeon.’
Gospel
John 12:1-11
‘She had to keep this scent for the day of my burial’
Six days before the Passover, Jesus went to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom he had raised from the dead. They gave a dinner for him there; Martha waited on them and Lazarus was among those at table. Mary brought in a pound of very costly ointment, pure nard, and with it anointed the feet of Jesus, wiping them with her hair; the house was full of the scent of the ointment. Then Judas Iscariot – one of his disciples, the man who was to betray him – said, ‘Why wasn’t this ointment sold for three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor?’ He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he was in charge of the common fund and used to help himself to the contributions. So Jesus said, ‘Leave her alone; she had to keep this scent for the day of my burial. You have the poor with you always, you will not always have me.’
Meanwhile a large number of Jews heard that he was there and came not only on account of Jesus but also to see Lazarus whom he had raised from the dead. Then the chief priests decided to kill Lazarus as well, since it was on his account that many of the Jews were leaving them and believing in Jesus.
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