Something Beautiful for God

As Wednesday of Holy Week begins, in Jerusalem the chief priests and the elders assembled in the palace of the high priest, Caiaphas, and made plans to arrest Jesus in secret and then put Jesus to death. 

At the same time in Bethany, Simon the leper was hosting a meal for Jesus. Lazarus was there and Martha was serving. Then Mary, their sister came to Jesus with an alabaster jar of the most expensive perfumed ointment and poured it on his head and anointed his feet, wiping them with her hair. The house was filled with the perfumed scent. 

Judas Iscariot - the man who was to betray him - said, “Why wasn't this ointment sold for three hundred days wages, and the money given to the poor?” He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief…Jesus said, “Leave her alone! She has done a beautiful thing to me. You have the poor with you always, you will not always have me. When she poured this ointment on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. Truly I say to you, wherever this Good News is proclaimed, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.” 

(Matthew 26 and John 12)

I am so moved by what Jesus said of Mary, “She has done a beautiful thing to me.”

At this point in Holy Week, don’t you want to do something beautiful to God?

The extravagant love of Mary 

As the all-seeing gaze of Jesus penetrates the hearts of all those in the room of the home of Simon, he sees many things that are sad, very sad indeed. He sees worldliness, self-interest, even treachery, but there is one heart that is true and desires only to return her love to God. 

While others are busy chatting and filled with distractions, Jesus looks into the depths of Mary’s heart and finds something of what he has found in the heart of his Mother; he finds attentiveness to his presence, the attentiveness of love. He finds adoration.

What should we learn from Mary and this anointing? She loved Jesus extravagantly. Think of it, she poured out a whole years’ worth of salary on Jesus in this one act of love. Mary shows us how to love Jesus excessively. 

God has been so generous with us; we should be generous with him in return. 

Jesus deserves our best, but do we give that to him? Instead of giving what is most precious to us – our time – sacrificing it to spend time with Jesus in prayer or at daily Mass, we very often give him the leftovers: left over time, left over energy and attentiveness. We give Jesus the scraps after we have first done what is important to us. One always makes time for what one loves.

Mary did something beautiful for Jesus, something extravagant. We want to do the same. But what does God want? What does he need? Our love, that’s all. He wants our love, our time, our attention - He just wants to be with us. That is prayer, that is Mass. That is adoration. It’s so simple and it is so beautiful.

Spy Wednesday

The stinging rebuke Judas received from Jesus was for him the last straw. He immediately went to the chief priests and said, “What are you prepared to give me if I hand him over to you?” They paid him thirty silver pieces and from that moment he looked for an opportunity to betray him.

Ever since, this day has come to be known as “Spy Wednesday” because this is the day Judas betrayed Christ.

Judas is the antithesis of the generous love of Mary. She loved Jesus more than anything in the world, even more than herself. Judas loved himself more than Christ and by his disordered love he became a slave to sin. But Judas is not alone – we all have things we love more than God; we are all slaves to sin. And sin  makes us slaves to death. 

Judas sold Christ for thirty pieces of silver. According to the Mosaic Law that was the price of a slave. St. Paul tells us that Jesus “took the form of a slave” (Phil 2:7) so that he might ransom us from sin, death, and the power of the devil and give us eternal life.

There is nothing we can ever do to repay him, but we should at least try.  

Little Li

One of the greatest ways we can love Christ extravagantly is in the Eucharist. 

Bishop Fulton Sheen related the story of a little girl who was martyred in Communist China, reportedly dying at the hands of Communist soldiers. He offers a version of the story in his autobiography, Treasure in Clay, that sets the scene of this heroic girl. There he writes: 

In China, a priest had just begun Mass when Communists entered and arrested him and made him a prisoner in a house adjoining the little church. From a window in that house, he could see the tabernacle. Shortly after his imprisonment, the Communists opened the tabernacle, threw the Hosts on the floor, and stole the Sacred Vessels. The priest then decided to make adoration to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament as much as he could day and night. About three o’clock one morning, he saw a child who had been at the morning Mass open a window, climb in, come to the sanctuary floor, get down on both knees, press her tongue to the Host to give herself Holy Communion. The priest told me there were about thirty Hosts in the ciborium. Every single night she came at the same time until there was only one Host left.  As she pressed her tongue to receive the Body of Christ, a shot rang out. A Communist soldier had seen her. It proved to be her Viaticum.

Little Li did something beautiful for Jesus!

We can do something beautiful for Jesus 

Jesus knows our weakness and so He has made it so easy for us to do something beautiful for Him. Jesus told St. Margaret Mary Alacoque that one of the best ways to love him extravagantly is to receive him as often as we can in the Eucharist. All we have to do is come to daily Mass as often as we can. 

But we can go a step further. We can give him our undivided attention, our love and adoration after receiving him in Communion. We call this Eucharistic thanksgiving.

From the moment we receive Jesus in the Eucharist, He remains within us, body, blood, soul and divinity for about 10-15 minutes. 

Right after Communion we have Jesus in a way we don’t normally have Him.  

St. John Chrysostom says: “When we have received the precious Body of Jesus Christ, we should take care not to lose its Heavenly Flavor by turning too soon to the cares or business of the world.”  

What should we do during the time after Communion? Give your undivided attention to Jesus in loving adoration. Rest your head on His heart like St. John at the Last Supper, bathe His feet with your tears like Mary did and listen to His words sitting at His feet as she did. Just be with him. He will do the rest. Such an easy way to do something beautiful for God. 

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