Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today is the Monday of the Holy Week and as we listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures, all of us are called to remember the role that Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Our Saviour had done in accomplishing everything that God had planned for our salvation, and on this most holy and solemn of all weeks in the year, we remember the things that the Lord has done for us, in loving us most wonderfully and generously, that He was willing to empty Himself of all glory and honour, embracing all of us and bearing our sins and faults upon Himself so that by His sufferings and by His willing endurance of the punishments meant for us, He may show unto us the path to eternal life.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of the prophet Isaiah we heard of the words of the Lord regarding the Servant Whom He would send to His people, the people of God and the whole world, bearing forth the salvation of God made manifest through this same Servant. And God reassured all of His people that He would be with them through this Servant on Whom His Holy Spirit and favour was on, and through Him the salvation and liberation of all of God’s people would be accomplished perfectly, just as He has foretold and prophesied to them through His many prophets including that of the prophet Isaiah. God does not want any of His children and beloved ones to be separated or lost to Him, and that was why He sent to them the salvation and promise of eternal life.

And this Servant Whom He has spoken about through Isaiah was none other than Jesus Christ, the Son of God incarnate in the flesh, Who has become the Son of Man, bringing forth the love of God perfectly manifested and becoming tangible and reachable to us. This same Christ, Our Lord and Saviour would also indeed suffer just as Isaiah prophesied, revealing how the same Lord Jesus would be rejected, persecuted and oppressed, and would be inflicted with the worst of punishments, but He would not resist or fight, and He accepted those sufferings with genuine and ever enduring love for us. He was led to the slaughter place, like a Lamb brought to be sacrificed, so that by His perfect obedience and most loving and selfless sacrifice, He might heal us all and bring us all to full reconciliation with God our Father.

Then from our Gospel passage today, taken from the Gospel according to St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, we heard of the moment when the Lord was in Bethany near Jerusalem during the week leading to His Crucifixion, when Mary, the sister of Lazarus came to the Lord before His disciples, anointing His feet with expensive perfume made of pure spikenard, and then wiped the perfumed feet clean with her hair. It was at that moment when Judas Iscariot, as mentioned, being the one who would betray the Lord to the chief priests, immediately criticised her for having wasted the expensive perfume, and in such case, the author of the Gospel, St. John pointed out the hypocrisy of the action of Judas because he himself had stolen from the funds of the Lord and His disciples to enrich his own pocket. Therefore, for him to criticise the actions of Mary was truly pure hypocrisy, and the Lord condemned Judas as such.

What Mary had done was more than just a prefigurement of the Lord’s sufferings and crucifixion, which the Lord hinted on as He mentioned how Mary was preparing His Body for His death, like that of how dead bodies were to be prepared for burial. Even more importantly is the symbolic representations of Mary’s actions before the Lord which should serve as important lessons for all of us to heed and to follow. First of all, Mary humbled herself before everyone and she put perfume on the Lord’s feet, when the feet at that time was considered as the filthiest and dirtiest part of a person’s body. Yet, she touched the Lord’s feet without hesitation, and even used her hair to wipe and clean the Lord’s feet. A woman’s hair is the crown of beauty and the pride of a woman, and Mary humbled herself such that she threw away all that pride in serving the Lord.

Through the example of Mary, the Lord Jesus wanted His disciples and hence all of us to take note what it truly means to become His disciples and followers. As the Lord Himself would do on the Last Supper a few days after this event, He would humble Himself and wash His disciples’ feet, an action which also drew a similar comment and astonishment from His disciples, especially from St. Peter the Apostle. But the Lord showed that true Christian love and leadership is one of service and not one of vainglory and ambition. He came into this world to lead us all to salvation and to reconciliation to the Father, and He showed this to us not through glorious and mighty deeds, but through humble and perfect obedience to the Father’s will. To be Christians, we have to follow the example of Our Lord Himself, Who has been always full of love, and like Mary, whose love for the Lord made her to humble herself and to serve Him in the manner that few would have thought of or considered.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore continue to deepen our faith in the Lord as we continue to progress through this Holy Week period. Let us make good use of the time and opportunities which had been presented to us so that we may truly benefit fully from this time when we commemorate Our Lord’s Passion, His suffering and death on the Cross, all of which He had done for our sake, for His great and ever enduring love for us. We should always be grateful at what we have received from God and all the opportunities that we have been given for us to come back to Him, being called and reminded many times by our loving and most compassionate Father. Let us all continue to focus our gaze upon the Cross of Christ this Holy Week, and spend good quality time to reflect on our sinfulness and how God’s love and compassion had made it possible for us to overcome those sins and return back to God, forgiven and reconciled with Him by the sacrifice of Christ on His Cross.

May the Lord continue to guide us all through this time and period of the Holy Week, helping us to focus our attention on the Lord and His Passion, His love and sacrifice for us amidst all the busy schedules and things that we have daily in our time this week. May He continue to encourage us all with the strength and wisdom to carry on living our daily lives with faith and obedience, with righteousness and desire to follow God in all things, to be the inspiration for our fellow brothers and sisters around us. May God be with us all and may He bless our every good efforts and works this Holy Week, and bless our family and loved ones too. Amen.