One Minute Reflection – 11 April – Monday of Holy Week – Isaias 50:5-10, John 12:1-9
“The house was filled with the odour of the ointment.” – John 12:3
REFLECTION – “When she had anointed the Lord’s feet this woman did not wipe them with a cloth but with her own hair, to show Him greater honour … Like a thirsty person drinking from a fresh waterfall, this holy woman drank in grace full of delights, from the Springs of Holiness, to quench the thirst of her faith.
However, in the allegorical or mystical sense, this woman prefigured the Church, which offered the full and entire devotion of its faith to Christ …There are twelve ounces to a pound and this is the amount of perfume the Church possesses, having received the teaching of the twelve Apostles, as if it were a precious perfume. Indeed, what more precious is there than the Apostles’ teaching, which contains both faith in Christ and the glory of the Kingdom of Heaven? Furthermore, it is related that the whole house was filled with the scent of that perfume because, the whole world has been filled with the Apostles’ teaching. As it is written: “Through all the earth their voice resounds and to the ends of the world, their message” (Ps 19[18]:5).
In the Song of Songs we read the following words addressed through Solomon, to the Church: “Your name spoken is a spreading perfume” (1,2). Not without cause, is the Lord’s Name called a “spreading perfume.” As you know, as long as perfume is preserved inside its flask, it keeps its fragrance but, as soon as is poured out or emptied, it spreads out its fragrant scent. Even so, as long as our Lord and Saviour reigned with His Father in Heaven, the world was unaware of Him, He was unknown here below. But when, for our salvation, He deigned to humble Himself, by descending from Heaven, to take on a human body, then He spread abroad in the world, the sweetness and perfume of His Name.“ – St Chromatius of Aquilaea (Died c 407) – Bishop of Aquileia, Italy, Theologian, Exegete (Sermon 11).
PRAYER – Grant, we beseech thee, almighty God, that we who fail through our weakness, in so many difficulties, may be relieved through the pledging of the Passion of Thy only-begotten Son. Who lives and reigns with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, world without end. Amen (Collect).
AnaStpaul 