Today we commemorate Holy Monday and inch closer to the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This Holy Monday, we are reminded to always prepare; prepare for what will happen next. Learn to earn time instead of wasting it on unnecessary matters. Let us examine ourselves, how could we prepare ourselves spiritually? How could we prepare our lives in the upcoming struggles? Gospel: (John 12: 1-11) Let us ponder on some of the highlights of today’s Gospel 1. Where Judas sees waste, Jesus sees love. Mary’s love anticipates the love of Jesus. She pours her tears on the feet of the one who will pour himself out on the world. 2. This scene is given to us in Holy Week. In a few days, time Jesus will die on the cross. We are given an insight into the minds of many people referred to in the story. Mary centers on Jesus and honors Him in an unusual way, letting us know how much she thinks of Him. Martha was catering to all the people there. Others come just to see Jesus and Lazarus. Judas criticizes the waste of the ointment. Jesus was aware of his forthcoming death, is completely composed and answers Judas. 3. Shortly after Mary’s action, Jesus will himself wash his disciples’ feet, in a similar act of love and humility on Maundy Thursday. The mystery of salvation is whether we will accept absolute and unconditional love and allow it to envelop us wholly. The mystery of damnation is the possibility deep in the human heart of totally rejecting the embrace of Divine Love in a final ‘No’.

Life Lessons from these highlights: 1. Generosity and extravagance can always be criticized, rationalized, and diminished as the head seeks to constrain the heart. In this Holy Week, I look again to see how God may wish to catch my attention in new ways and lead me to learn with my feeling heart. 2. Whose side are we on? Perhaps you can see some validity in what Judas says. Yet it is Mary who continues to be admired for her loving and uninhibited gestures. 3. As we contemplate let us breathe deeply in and imagine the smell of a precious scent filling the house. It was an extravagant, wasteful, and indulgent thing to do but it speaks of human reality: some opportunities need to be grasped as they arise, and some moments need to be honored, friendship cannot always be calculating. 4. Holy Week invites me to spend time with Jesus, not for any logical reason but simply to accompany a loved friend

Let us conclude with the peace prayer by St. Francis of Assisi. Lord, make me an instrument of your peace: where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen