Homily for Monday of Holy Week

Homily for Monday of Holy Week

April 11, 2022
John 12: 1-11
Salesian HS, New Rochelle, N.Y.

There’s a great, dramatic cast of characters in today’s gospels in addition to our Lord Jesus.  There’s Lazarus, who becomes something of a center of attention because Jesus had just raised him from the dead.  Some people look for religion to be a kind of showtime rather than paying attention to what religion’s supposed to be about:  God.

There are the chief priests, who are out to eliminate Jesus.  They see him as a threat to their influence over the people, and because Lazarus has caused such a stir they decide they must eliminate him as well.  Destroy the evidence of Jesus’ goodness!  They remind us that all of us have a tendency to push aside or bury inconvenient evidence—which might be as simple as the grades we’re earning and what those grades imply about our study habits and our character; or as complicated as the biological fact that when a woman conceives a child, she’s carrying a new, independent human being in her womb, and “controlling her own body” is no longer the issue.

(by Rubens and Van Dyck)

Another character is Mary, one of the sisters of Lazarus.  She’s very devoted to Jesus, and she makes a radical decision to show her devotion by lavishing on him a jar of very expensive ointment.  The gospel says it’s worth 300 denarii.  A denarius was a day’s wage for a workingman; so Mary’s demonstrating intense devotion to Jesus—in our cash terms, about $3,600.  But, as Mastercard might say, it’s priceless.

Mary, of all the people in the story, is rightly focused.  She’s focused on Jesus.  We might not have lavish gifts to present to Jesus, but we can give him our full devotion day by day—to love him more dearly, as they sing in Godspell.*  And that’s worth more than 300 denarii.

Judas objects to Mary’s lavishness.  Piously, he pretends to care about the poor.  Sometimes we make lousy excuses for what we really think.  His real motive, St. John tells us, is greed, selfishness.  That greed a few days later leads him to betray Jesus.  So we must always evaluate our motives carefully and try to keep them properly directed—like Mary, directed toward Jesus.

* Salesian's dramatics club performed Godspell during the first weekend of April.