Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - On 2nd April, the second anniversary of the death of John Paul II, the Gospel of Holy Monday took us to Bethany, a place Jesus loved, the home of his friends Lazarus, Martha and Mary who accepted and lived the teaching of the Master with generous selflessness.
The Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI, his voice filled with emotion, reflected on the Gospel referring it to the unforgettable figure of the Servant of God John Paul II, during the Mass celebrated for the repose of the late Pope’s soul: “The second anniversary of the holy death of this beloved Pontiff occurs in a context of recollection and prayer: … the Liturgy helps us relive the Lord’s last days here on earth. Today it leads us to Bethany, where "six days before the Passover " - as John the evangelist narrates - Lazarus, Martha and Mary gave a supper for the Master… The Gospel passage calls our attention to a gesture which speaks to our hearts in a singular way: Mary of Bethany, " brought in a pound of very costly ointment, pure nard, and with it anointed the feet of Jesus, wiping them with her hair" (Jn 12,3). This is one of those details in the life of Jesus which St John keeps in his mind and heart and which contain an inexhaustible charge of expression. The detail speaks of a wondrous, overabundant love for Christ, like the "very costly" nard used to anoint His feet. A fact which symptomatically scandalised Judas Iscariot: the logic of love clashes with that of personal profit”.
With regard to Mary’s witness of faith and love, the Pope recalled the example of John Paul II and he said: «the "perfume" of his love "filled the house" (Jn 12,3), that is the whole Church...The intense and fruitful pastoral ministry, and ever more, the calvary of the agony and holy death of our beloved Pope, revealed to the men and women of our day that Jesus Christ was truly his "everything "» (homily Benedict XVI, 2 April 2007).
These words of by Holy Father with regard to his beloved Predecessor, pregnant with truth, touch the heart and encourage us to follow the example of God’s witnesses who made their whole life an unreserved and disinterested gift to the Saviour. If our love is to “spread”, like the ointment in Bethany, it must first break the barrier of our “ego”, put aside all calculation and any idea of personal gain. Only then will it be disinterested love, which places nothing before love of Christ. To love God for His own sake is the logic of Jesus and of his authentic disciples who left everything to follow Him, because God alone can become ‘everything’ in life. This is no easy path, particularly at the beginning, when we come up against the logic of self interest so deeply rooted in our hearts, the pervading logic today.
Mary of Bethany and John Paul II, show that it is worthwhile dedicating oneself entirely to the Lord Jesus; rejecting the trap of “calculated” interests, human logic, and instead converting to the logic of God. Our life should unfold like a “Holy Week”, never wandering from the horizon of “redemption” in this season of our salvation, when Our Lord gives Himself to us and we give ourselves to him. Too often in daily life we are preoccupied with many useless things, forgetting that each day is a gift for us to advance in holiness, in order to become “perfume” of Christ. This will be possible only if we remain in Him.
It is a great grace to be able to live every week as a “holy” week, since this is God’s plan: “Thus he chose us in Christ before the world was made to be holy and faultless before him in love,marking us out for himself beforehand, to be adopted sons, through Jesus Christ. Such was his purpose and good pleasure,to the praise of the glory of his grace, his free gift to us in the Beloved, in whom, through his blood, we gain our freedom, the forgiveness of our sins. Such is the richness of the grace” (Eph. 1, 4-7). To live always in Holy Week, is to imitate the Blessed Virgin Mary who always followed her Son. John Paul II, totally consecrated to Our Lady, was “perfume of Christ” for the world. It was to this Mother that the Servant of God continually turned, supplicating and praising her, loving her as one loves a mother: “My Mother for always”, he said on 13 May 1991 in Fatima, expressing the bond which should unite each of us with Mary.
To Mary, Mother of Sorrows, we wish to entrust our life, our “Holy Week”, in order to learn from Her how to pour out the ointment which still remains, to love Love who is not loved, to say from the depth of our soul “Totus tuus ego sum”. (Agenzia Fides 4/4/2007; righe 54, parole 811)
