"Every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered" (1Co 11:2-16).Veronica SevillaWomen are a factor of change in the Church".Throughout the Gospels, we find Jesus followed by thousands of people who sought him out to ask for his merciful favors. Crowds easily flocked to him in search of healing, deliverance, or to hear his transformative teachings. They presented him with real needs, such as their paralysis, blindness, leprosy, or brought them sick and hopeless in repeated scenes and pictures of pain.
To this day, these are the most common images on the altars and in the chapels visited by those who come in time of need. It would be strange to see a church full of grateful worshippers who come not to ask but only to offer in gratitude! Still, welcome to all, for He unconditionally invited them to say, come to me, the weary and heavy laden, and bring me your burdens. (Matthew 11:28).
In the Gospels we read of two exceptions that we could highlight of those who came to prostrate themselves to give him gifts: one at the beginning of his life, and the other towards the end of it. On the first occasion, some interesting characters from the East (kings, magi, or astrologers) who, following the omen of the star, obsessively sought him out to present him with very expensive chests of incense, gold and myrrh.
The second occasion was the case of the mysterious woman with a pure nard perfume in an alabaster jar costing 300 denarii, the annual salary of a worker in Jesus' time. In those times when expensive oil or perfume was transported or stored, the jar was sealed so as not to risk it evaporating or being used in waste. Therefore, the jar would have to be broken to finally use the expensive contents.
The woman with the perfume
An interesting tradition from ancient times will help us understand this Gospel. It is said that some cultures used to have unmarried maidens prepare a cup of expensive perfume and keep it until the day the desired man proposed to them. If the young woman agreed to his proposal she would prove it by breaking the vessel and pouring the perfume on his feet; a way of sayingI receive you in my heart and in my life, and I give you the treasure of my purity reserved for you.. The Song of Songs also mentions the perfume of fine nard as a symbol of fidelity and purity in conjugal love.
At Mark 14:3-9A woman known as a sinner, when she heard that Jesus was eating at a Pharisee's house, came in with an alabaster jar filled with the costly perfume of fine nard, broke it, and approaching Jesus anointed his head and all his hair, and fell at his feet wetting them with her tears and wiping them with her own hair. Who is this woman who was not on the guest list for that succulent dinner? A silent lover of Jesus? One who found the love of her life and wanted to show it to him like the maidens in love in ancient times? Or is she a prophetic figure of humanity prostrate before his feet, weeping with love and repentance, offering her only wealth in exchange for the forgiveness of her many sins?
It is interesting that the four Gospels speak of her: in Luke, Matthew and Mark the woman is anonymous but in the Gospel of John she is identified as Mary of Bethany, sister of Lazarus and friend of Jesus. Now it makes more sense! She who on other occasions would sit at His feet in ecstasy for long hours listening to Him, would become obsessed with Him and would profess her love for Him by giving Him her preserved fine nard as a gift. But very much in His style, Jesus transformed a moment charged with human feelings and realities into spiritual languages and supernatural experiences. The place became one of those confessionals where no one would ever no words can be heard, but the tears of repentant faces can be seen.
– Supernatural woman is prophetically sized to prefigure all those of contrite hearts before his feet who finally value spiritual riches far above material or human riches and communicate with languages of sanctified love. The dinner guests are the same as always who do not see beyond the mundane and everyday and question the value of spiritual gains. And the poor who must always be cared for are those who are affectively rather than materially deprived, and who need not only physical bread, but also food for the soul.
Christ and the murmurings
Whoever this woman was, at the conclusion of the renowned moment, Jesus said something that did not ever said of any of the guests at the dinner, or of any follower or disciple: "Wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will also be told for a memorial of her" (Mark 14:9).
Observers tabulated and greedily counted this offering as they still do today. The world with its banking mentality does not understand the unmeasured dedication of a consecrated life or an act of unconditional surrender and sacrifice. A year's salary squandered in a moment of exaggerated sentimentality? What a waste of so little wealth! Besides, there were those who thought that this perfume was tainted with sin, for what woman in those times could afford such a luxury? Only someone who made a good living in sinful business.
Jesus did not care about the comments of her past or her sin. All that was diluted in the tears of repentance of a contrite woman. "Let her alone, for because she has been forgiven much, she has loved me much" (Luke 7:47-50). The guests saw only a broken jar and a costly wasted spikenard. But for Jesus, the "ground gold" of the spikenard did not compare with his sincere tears flowing from a broken heart: these were far more costly and valuable. For just as only by breaking alabaster will spikenard spring forth, so inner brokenness unleashes powerful invocations, unrecognizable virtues and streams of grace. The aroma of the imported ointment filled the house and even permeated the clothes of the guests in that room. It was the kind of expensive fragrance that was used in drips because of its strong odor, and spilling a whole bottle flooded the atmosphere until it could still be perceived several days later.
The good smell of Christ
A few days after what happened at this penultimate public supper, Jesus washes the feet of his disciples at the last supper, and hours later faces his passion and death. But on that road to Calvary, Jesus did not smell of blood, sweat or death. The scent of the fine spikenard so impregnated in Him flooded the route of the Via Dolorosa, as a symbol of the fragrance of mercy. Jesus would shed His blood to benefit all those prostrated before that cross throughout history. The shattered flask was a figure of Jesus' body which would be broken. His shed blood would be more precious than the purest oil: an eternally present and pervasive fragrance of forgiveness, of incomparable value and redemptive power.
Every time you, woman, shed tears of brokenness, repentance and gratitude at the feet of Jesus, you turn your pain into a precious perfume, you are handing over to him a whole story of joys and tears, of achievements and failures, of efforts and rewards, of gains and losses. It will be worth it to sacrifice that tithe in exchange for eternal life! It will be worth it to sign that peace treaty and negotiation of mercy so that you will hear the same words that Jesus said to her: her many sins are forgiven because she showed me much love (Luke 7:47). It will no longer be your past sins or brokenness that will identify you, but you will be recognized by the aroma of the fine spikenard that His mercy will impregnate in you.
