Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, "Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages." He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it."Leave her alone," Jesus replied. " It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me." John 12:3-8
REFLECTION
“Some people always know the price of everything, but the value of nothing,” someone once said. What is the value of being in the company of Jesus, the eternal Son of God? And picture this: your brother has been called back to life by the Creator of the universe and the perfect Lover of your soul has forgiven all your sins. What price tag would you put on that?
Mary couldn’t care less about money. She wanted to give her all – with everything she had – to her Master, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Lord valued her sacrifice of love.
Sometimes people around you don’t know how to react to your complete devotion. They can only think about the price that your gift to the Master represents and they just can’t stand the sweet smell of pure love. Well, whose fault is that?
PRAYER
Dear Lord, no human being can take your place and nobody can claim your glory. I want to pour out my love to you – no matter the costs and no matter what other people say. You know my true motives and you also know what is really inspiring the people who are mocking me, criticizing me and sneering at me. My prayer is that the sweet smell of my commitment, the gift of my praises, will be enough to drive away the bad odors of people who are only devoted to their own glory and the things of this world. Please put them to shame and make them repent before they go too far to be reconciled back to you. Change their heart and alter their perception, because there’s absolutely nothing wrong with my devotion to You.
“Some people always know the price of everything, but the value of nothing,” someone once said. What is the value of being in the company of Jesus, the eternal Son of God? And picture this: your brother has been called back to life by the Creator of the universe and the perfect Lover of your soul has forgiven all your sins. What price tag would you put on that?
Mary couldn’t care less about money. She wanted to give her all – with everything she had – to her Master, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Lord valued her sacrifice of love.
Sometimes people around you don’t know how to react to your complete devotion. They can only think about the price that your gift to the Master represents and they just can’t stand the sweet smell of pure love. Well, whose fault is that?
PRAYER
Dear Lord, no human being can take your place and nobody can claim your glory. I want to pour out my love to you – no matter the costs and no matter what other people say. You know my true motives and you also know what is really inspiring the people who are mocking me, criticizing me and sneering at me. My prayer is that the sweet smell of my commitment, the gift of my praises, will be enough to drive away the bad odors of people who are only devoted to their own glory and the things of this world. Please put them to shame and make them repent before they go too far to be reconciled back to you. Change their heart and alter their perception, because there’s absolutely nothing wrong with my devotion to You.
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1 comment:
Once again you illustrate what a good person you are—you see Mary’s purity of heart, whereas I am mostly aware of Judas’ sin. This story is so insightful about a certain type of person who mouths platitudes about the poor while having no real heart for God.
To me, Judas is the archetypal religious fraud, and Mary is the example to which we should aspire. My brother just read M. Scott Peck’s “People of the Lie” which deals with evil from a psychoanalytical viewpoint. Peck says that an evil person projects his sins onto other people, lies incessantly to maintain respectability, is consistent in his sins, and is unable to think from other people's viewpoints. From this capsule description (I haven’t read the book) it sounds like he could be describing Judas Iscariot.
My mother feels that the gold ornament in St. Peter’s in Rome should be melted down and the proceeds used to feed the world’s starving. This passage is the reason I don’t quite agree with her. There is nothing wrong with giving your all to God. It’s just that it’s easy to cross a line and end up giving your all to impress your fellow man, which is sort of what my mother sensed at the Vatican.
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