THOUGHTS OF A MONK

The Annointing

Palm Sunday
April 2006

This gospel foreshadows the week ahead with the betrayal and burial suggested in Mary’s anointing. In this account Mary is not the passive sister we have encountered earlier, hanging back when Martha ran out to confront Jesus with her brother’s death. Here Mary acts in a gesture most remarkable, using a whole pound of nard to anoint the feet of Jesus, as surprising as emptying a whole bottle of Chanel #5. Its value, the evangelist notes, was 300 silver pieces, ten times what Judas would receive for betraying the Master. What motivated her? Was it gratitude for getting Lazarus back, or just overwhelming love for he teacher and friend, or a premonition of his death?

The gospel presents it as a prophetic act by the very words of Christ. The aroma filled the house, like the pleasant surprise of sniffing something good cooking on coming in the front door. It is the nature of prophecy to be noticed. Here the nose knows.

Shortly before the death of a close friend of ours, Fr. Joe had an anointing service in the chapel of St. Peter’s Hospital. For everyone there it was also a sign. The priest who performed the anointing did not make it a dainty dab, but massaged the unction into his skin. It put me in mind of the pre-baptismal anointing which has its roots in preparing an athlete for the struggle. In this case it was a sign to prepare Joe for the bitter sweetness of saying farewell to his many friends who crowded into the chapel, and for the mercifully short struggle with kidney failure and the shutting down of his body. It was a sign of his acceptance of death, as redolent with the promise of resurrection, as the voice of Jesus calling Lazarus from the cave.

The next section of today’s scripture sees more prophetic action. The taking up of palms - the welcoming tribute to champion hero or king. We take them up to hail Christ as victor over death. The Jerusalem crowd was expecting a political liberation. Jesus deflects this by his own sign when he seeks out a humble donkey to carry him into the city. The words of Zechariah, which we heard in the first reading, should have awakened the people to the true purpose of his coming. Only later did the disciples make the connection.

We need to open our eyes to prophetic signs in our own time where events, actions and intuitions can remind us that our life is a climb to Jerusalem. We must not loose sight of Jesus who was aware the “Hosannas” would soon turn to“crucify” him.” The signs may help us realize the Passion was not simply a physical trial [à la Mel Gibson] but an ordeal of isolation and abandonment: “Eloi, eloi lama sabachthani”.

The recent death of our friend, the near death of others dear to us and even the slow process of physical recovery for Br. Elias in a facility so far away all serve as prophecy of our own mortality and magnify our own metaphysical loneliness —an emptiness no spouse, no friend, no measure of fame or wealth can fill. I must make this loneliness my own Jerusalem, Golgotha, and empty tomb. When I embrace this emptiness as sacred space then I begin to let God in. Henry Nouwen called it the Grand Canyon of the Soul. Prayer, meditation, and for me, certain experience of beauty help me face this void, like the sunset on the canyon that colors its many ridges and sharpens the contrast with its depths [a sight I once witnessed from the air]. Embracing the emptiness brings self-awareness, humility, awareness of the other, and empathy for others. I begin to let Christ and, in turn, become Christ for others.

I recently encountered two beautiful pieces of art that helped me reflect on this: one, at the RPI Newman Center was a 12 foot high crucifix with no cross bar which begs the viewer to think who can be Christ’s arms. The other was a mobile mounted over the baptismal pool in the narthex of the Catholic Church in Chatam. The main icon of Christ from behind the Holy Table in the nave had been reproduced in various pieces, the face, the blessing hand, the gospel book, the torso, the reverse of each is mylar that acts as many mirrors that invite you to see yourself “robed in Christ”, or Christ in you.