Fifth Sunday of Lent
Each year as we approach the end of the Lenten Season we are reminded that all of our hope in Christ for the resurrection and the new life we have together in Christ is grounded in the suffering and the death of Jesus. Our own agendas are nothing next to this. Any pain or guilt that we may suffer in keeping or breaking our Lenten discipline is nothing next to the suffering and death of Jesus in the cross. That is essential to God’s plan for salvation.
In the town of Bethany six days before the Jewish Passover our Lord Jesus was visiting his friends, Mary, Martha and Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.
Martha served the meal and Lazarus was at the table with Jesus and it was then when Mary anointed Jesus’s feet with a very expensive perfume made of nard. The story that the Evangelist Saint John relates mentions that the house was filled with fragrance.
The sense of smell always brings back memories. I still remember my mother preparing a delightful hot chocolate for me before going to bed at night and the smell of the fragrance that they used to polish floors.
Mary’s house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment she poured on Jesus’ feet and it must have made quite an impression because Saint John mentioned it as he shared Jesus’ life saying that Jesus spoke of it as foreshadowing his burial.
Next Sunday we celebrate Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week. I hope and pray that these meditations that followed the one for Ash Wednesday served to bring you closer to Christ and to continue your walk with him not only to the cross but to his resurrection.
May God bless you.