How can I, on this Monday of Holy Week, reconcile the profound symbolism of the Gospel—where the house was filled with the fragrance of #oil—with Laudato si’‘s invitation to embrace nature’s elements in worship, when at The Glenn my grandchild finds joy in a discarded cardboard box, yet my heart aches for a miracle for my son Daniel through the intercession of the Venerable Fulton J. Sheen, who reminds me that “Love must have crisis or it dies”❓
Gospel
Six days before Passover Jesus came to Bethany,
where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.
They gave a dinner for him there, and Martha served,
while Lazarus was one of those reclining at table with him.
Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil
made from genuine aromatic nard
and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair;
the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.
Then Judas the Iscariot, one of his disciples,
and the one who would betray him, said,
“Why was this oil not sold for three hundred days’ wages
and given to the poor❓”
He said this not because he cared about the poor
but because he was a thief and held the money bag
and used to steal the contributions.
So Jesus said, “Leave her alone.
Let her keep this for the day of my burial.
You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”The large crowd of the Jews found out that he was there and came,
not only because of him, but also to see Lazarus,
whom he had raised from the dead.
And the chief priests plotted to kill Lazarus too,
because many of the Jews were turning away
and believing in Jesus because of him.
Lent Day 37 Lectio Divina on the word “oil“
I often forget how elemental and sacred oil truly is. Not just in anointings and sacraments, but in the small graces of everyday life. A child rubbing lotion into their skin, the scent of lavender diffusing through a quiet room, the way olive oil shimmers in a pan before breakfast—each moment, a kind of blessing. I sense there’s more to these things than I allow myself to see. Maybe this is what Laudato si’ means when it says oil, water, fire, and color are lifted into praise.
At The Glenn, even the animals seem to understand this holy rhythm. A ewe gently tending to her lambs, a dog curled around her pups, our grandchild discovering a whole afternoon of joy inside a cardboard box—these, too, are sacraments in disguise. I dab a little oil on dry skin and think of kings and prophets, of ancient rituals and modern aches, of the earth’s bounty and how it soothes. There is an anointing here, though no one says the words out loud.
Even as Daniel lies in hospice, my wife Kim and I continue to pray for a miracle. We anoint each day with hope, even if we sometimes ache in silence. Fulton Sheen said, “Love must have crisis or it dies.” This is our crisis. But it is also our love—an oil pressed from suffering, from surrender, from prayer poured out like perfume on the feet of Christ. I do not know what will come. But I trust in the offering.
And so today, like Mary in the Gospel, I kneel beside what is broken and precious. I offer what little I have: oil of gladness, oil of grief, oil of hope, oil of praise. And I breathe it in, because somehow I believe—
Through our worship of God, we are invited to embrace the world on a different plane. Water, oil, fire and colours are taken up in all their symbolic power and incorporated in our act of praise.
FROM PARAGRAPH 235 OF THE ENCYCLICAL LETTER LAUDATO SI’ OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS ON CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME