Search

Bethany Hang Out

Catholic contemplative life and devotion

Open Search
Category

saints

A novena to St. Teresa of Avila


Day One: Setting foot on the Royal Road

“We need no wings to go in search of Him, but have only to look upon Him present within us.”

St. Teresa teach me how to find Jesus within myself where you say he is enthroned in the center of my heart. Show me how to go within, to see his beauty, know his tenderness.
You overcame impediments from the world, and reluctance of your own, to seek him and keep him company with growing love and joy. Lead me in the first steps onto the Royal Road of prayer meant for me, so that I may walk in the glow of your lamp held high to light my way.

Pray now a slow, attentive Our Father.

Day 2 The Sacred Humanity of Jesus

“Never set aside the Sacred Humanity of Christ. To do so is to lose your anchor.”

We are not Angel spirits as St. Teresa pointed out. We are human. We need a hug. We need to know that Jesus had and has hands and feet, had to blow his nose sometimes, that he sweated over his work, that his feet were often dirty in his sandals from all that walking he did, that he cried, that he laughed that he needed his friends as well as time alone. He knows all the stars by name but he also knows and cares about every tear we shed. He is glory beyond glory but when he takes our hands we can feel that they are work roughened and warm. You can trace your thumb along the deep scar in his palm.

Let yourself be captured by his eyes; dark and lovely. Ask him now: Jesus be real to me.

Day 3: Friendship with Christ

“It is a great thing to have experienced the friendship of Jesus Christ, because the friendship of His Majesty is full of love and reward.”

St. Teresa’s spirituality is rooted in friendship with Jesus, which implies intimacy, informality, and mutuality.
She cautioned us not to be irreverent toward the Lord. She often called him “Your Majesty” when she spoke to him. At the same time she had a complete trust in his love and regard for her as his friend, his dear friend, a friend he trusted and loved to be with. She loved him back in a deeply personal way. She strove to bring her loving attentiveness to his presence into all that she did throughout the day, and to make time to be alone with him in conversation or sweet silence.

Jesus no longer calls us servants but friends. Try thinking of him as the Friend who you know loves you and who you love back.

Make friends with Jesus. Teresa says the best way to start is to ask him humbly for his friendship.

Here he is. Ask him now.

Day 4: Come into the castle of your soul

“I began to think of the soul as if it were a castle made of a single diamond or of very clear crystal, in which there are many rooms, just as in Heaven there are many mansions.”

“The door of entry into this castle is prayer and meditation.”

Oh Teresa what a beautiful vision you had of what I look like inside and Who lives there!

Help me to find my way to the Lord within. Show me how to open the beautiful doors of my heart to see the One I love so intensely. I want to sit at his feet. I want to be in his arms against his Sacred Heart listening to its beating.

Call to me Lord, draw me, help me to love you truly, to be all yours, to listen to you, know you, to walk through the rooms of the castle seeking your hand.

Let me hear your voice and see your face for your voice is sweet and your face is beautiful.

Day 5 Solitude and silence

”Settle yourself in solitude, and you will

come upon him in yourself.”

“Silence is God’s first language.”

Sometimes Jesus went off by himself to be alone and to pray. How much more do we need to do the same, to go into our inner room, close the door on the outside world with its sights and sounds and interruptions for a time.

Teresa talked about this as recollecting the senses and bringing them within ourselves like bees returning to the hive to make honey.

Let’s find time to be alone today in quiet, even for a few minutes, to go within ourselves where Jesus waits.

Greet him by the name you most love to call him.

Do you have anything you need to say to Jesus? Does he say anything to you?

Maybe you have a conversation with him.

Now sit with him in silence in a comfortable kind of way, the way friends do.

St. Teresa pray for us that we will come to love silence and solitude where we can be alone with God.

Day 6 Talking to Jesus

“But above all things, I want to impress upon you that, when we are speaking to him, we should look at him and remain in his presence, and not turn our backs upon him.”  

Have you ever heard the rosary being prayed in church and thought it kind of sounded like an auction underway? It’s so easy to slip into vain repetition – meaning not paying attention to what we are saying or to Whom we are speaking. If the Lord is our friend we want to look at him when we talk to him, to know what we’re saying to him. To be attentive and not mechanical it’s important to slow down, and make conscious contact rather than reciting a formula. Jesus is here wanting us. He is the Friend, the Brother, a Father, our Spouse. St. Teresa advised us to speak to him one way and at other times another.
She wants us to speak from the heart whether with our words or with silent love.

Speak to the Lord today, either in the words of a set traditional prayer, your own words, or in quiet attentiveness. In all of these keep the eyes of your soul on him, present within you, listening to you and loving you.

Day 7 Determined determination

St. Teresa you faced so many trials along the path of your spiritual life. Sometimes you laughed at threats like the Inquisition being suspicious of your work and ways. Other times like when a spiritual director thought your prayer experiences were from the devil you cried and you wanted to die and were afraid to be alone.

But God blessed you all the more with the consolations you were told to reject.

At times you even gave up prayer, feeling unworthy.

You dealt with other people’s fears and resentments toward you, opposition and obstacles. Somehow you accomplished all that the Lord asked of you. Once you knew what it was to pray with satisfaction, and once you truly knew the presence and love of God you were unwilling to ever give up prayer again.

You urged us on, reminding us that life is like one night at a bad inn and the prize, Christ himself was worth anything at all we could go through to get to him. You called this single minded persistence determined determination. Pray for us as we make our way inward and ultimately to Heaven, that we will proceed with “determined determination” as you did. Lead us straight into the Heart of Jesus.

Day 8 Holy Mary

It seems to me that there is no better teacher for prayer than the glorious Virgin.”

”Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart.” Luke 2:19

Mary had a listening heart, attentive to every sign of God’s will and inspiration. Immaculately conceived and free from spiritual impediment she had a clarity of perception and relationship with God. She had one great visitation by the Angel Gabriel but we have no record of any visions and extraordinary signs she received otherwise. Mary live by faith as we do, living an ordinary life that was nevertheless quietly extraordinary.

In her heart she pondered and treasured the Word of God himself within herself, then in his daily presence, and remained United with him just as much in spirit as he began his ministry.

Teresa assimilated Mary’s spirit of contemplation, cherishing the Lord within, remaining attentive and united to him at all times. This is why Teresa’s Order of Discalced Carmelites sees Mary as Mother. Sister and Queen, and our primary devotion to her is meditation in the heart, contemplative prayer, perceiving God as within ourselves.

Oh beautiful Flower of Carmel, holy and singular, who brought forth the Son of God, ever still remaining a pure Virgin, assist us in our necessity! Show us that thou art Our Mother! Our Lady if Mt. Carmel, pray for us.
.

Day 9 Love

”Amor saca amor.” Love draws out love.

Prayer leads us into union with God and union with God fills us with love, his love becoming ours.
Teresa taught us that we should “make many acts of love.” She knew that love was active and effective, more than emotion it blossomed into friendship and service and compassion. The love of God is transformative and the more we pray the more we see that love of others deepens our prayer and prayer deepens the love with which we serve and our desire to serve.

Not only that but prayer becomes almost indistinguishable from love. Prayer becomes love and love becomes prayer.

St. Teresa pray for us and lead us into the depths of love with God. Brighten our way along the Royal Road of the spiritual life. Help us to truly know the Lord we love and live for. Remind us that love is both the means and the goal of this journey.
We wish you a happy feast day and we pray for all the intentions you have for the Church, for priests, for the sanctification of the people of God, that Jesus will have the best and trustiest of friends and that we will be among them, that he will be followed and loved and praised and known by all of us. In your special honor we ask all of this of the Lord and in the sweet Name of Jesus.

St. Teresa pray for us.
Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, pray for us.




3

My new book I finished writing this summer

Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels.com

This summer I finished my manuscript for a new book. The working title is Pray Like Teresa; how to pray the Prayer of Recollection of St. Teresa of Avila. The publisher will decide the official title. I agonized a lot writing it but that seems to be part of my creative process unfortunately. It was also my solace during a stressful summer as it turned out to be.

When I have a project on I continually “write” in my head until it’s finished. Then it’s hard for me to stop messing with it and to stop thinking about it all the time. I enjoyed St. Teresa’s accompaniment during the months of working on this little book for her. I hope she is happy with it.

The book is short, only 15,000 words, about half the length of my first one, Come to Mary’s House; spending time with Our Blessed Mother. It is also more instructional than Come to Mary’s House. I would describe the general vibe of the book as St. Teresa with a Shawn twist. I tried to stay absolutely true to Tersa’s teachings and to work in my own Teresian spirituality and experience as well.

An important goal I had for this book was to help everyday Catholics and others to get to know Teresa’s teachings in a friendly way. I included St. Teresa’s struggles and sense of humor along with her teachings on the Prayer of Recollection and her basic foundational teachings that underpin it. I hope for the reader to see that contemplative prayer is for everyone and that this method of prayer is one anyone can do.

Photo by Matheus Bertelli on Pexels.com

I also wanted to show why contemplative prayer is desirable, not only for the growth of the person who prays but for the good of the Church and the whole world. In this way I believe deepening inner prayer and contact with God, friendship with Jesus, and the practice of a life of prayer are urgent necessities in our world today and for the renewal of the Church.

A lot of people may be intimidated by Teresa of Avila because of her profound mystical experiences, because she is the “Doctor of Prayer,” and such a great figure of Catholic spirituality. Maybe they had not thought of reading her works before because they were written about 500 years ago and they assume she is inaccessible and too Medieval to be understandable or applicable to their lives.

I hope the reader will find that St. Teresa was also very human, witty, funny, practical and grounded. Her wisdom is relevant to anyone wanting to live the spiritual life, to grow in prayer, to this day. I hope I have provided a simple way to take up this prayer that Teresa said the Lord himself taught her, to anyone who picks this book up.

I think it would be a perfect book to take to Adoration with you, enriching your prayer in that hour with Jesus, or to keep by the place you like to sit when you pray daily. One could easily read a section each day and try the part of the prayer that section suggests.

I intend to encourage everyone who reads this book to try the prayer, to stick with it, along with giving practical ideas to help them be consistent.

I arranged it as an introduction to Teresa herself, and then I played out reflectively her basic discoveries about prayer such as friendship with Jesus, his Sacred Humanity, and God being experienced as within us.

Then I wrote a section about each step of the prayer and how to do it, each one headed by a quote from Teresa or from Scripture.

I allowed myself the pleasure of writing about the effects of the prayer as well and let myself get poetic about those but not overly so I hope. I wanted to communicate the beauty and joy of intimate love of God.

I am hoping this book will appeal to the everyday Catholic who may be being called by God to cast their nets into the deep or at least the deeper or even a little bit deeper. Whether the reader takes up everything in the book as part of their daily prayer life or not I hope reading it will improve their prayer life and their relationship with the Lord at least a little. I think it will.

My parish is primarily young people in college. They are remarkably devout, however. I can imagine some of them being interested in this book. I thought of them while I was writing, but also of people my own age or so (I’m 56) who at this time of life may be more interested in contemplation and want to give it daily time. I want it to speak to anyone who looks through it.

I turned in my manuscript to Our Sunday Visitor on Assumption Day, a few days early. But I thought it was a good way to honor Our Lady and St. Teresa, whose habit (the Carmelite habit) she wore.

Look for the new book August 25th, 2025

1

On the Vigil of St. Therese

Photo by Rahul Pandit on Pexels.com


Catholicly speaking October is a month rich with beloved Saints. Tonight we pass from grumpy old St. Jerome to the young sweet spiritual giant St. Therese. Tonight her Basilica in San Antonio has 1900 roses ready for the “mass of the roses..”

There will be roses all over the world tomorrow because of something she said when she was dying at the age of 24; “Oh I will come down! I will spend my Heaven doing good on earth! I will let fall a shower of roses from heaven!” And she will, too. Somewhere in all those roses ready for her feast day, there is one for you. Maybe she is already holding it close to her heart.

Remember her tomorrow and be part of the joy.

0

Abbess Hildegard

Born in 1098, the tenth child of her family and dedicated as a tithe to a monastery of Benedictine nuns at the age of eight, St Hildegard grew up to be an extraordinary and holy woman. She was a mystic, a poet, a composer of unique, soaring liturgical music so different from the plain chant of the time. St. Hildegard was the author of books, music, and plays. As a  Benedictine Abbess she communicated with Bishops and Popes. She was a popular public speaker at a time women were normally not allowed to teach or speak. Abbess Hildegard was a prophet, an adviser, an influencer of her time. 

Her colorful mandala like art, not created by herself but overseen by her, represented her visions of the Trinity, and other Heavenly realities. The paintings often have a multi-layered appearance leading the eye to a central space containing a symbol. Looking at them makes me feel like I’m  seeing into another world or a into a great depth. 

Her  illustrated book Scivias describes  her mystical visions  and the interpretations of them she heard from God. It was written in 1151. She begins it with her experience of God commanding  her to write it. It is still available now as are other works of hers which ranged from the botanical to the medicinal, to the  theological. Her exquisite music has been performed for centuries.. Her musical play, Ordo virtutum, or Play of the Virtues, may well be the oldest known morality play. It is beautiful but you may jump when in the middle of the serene vocals, the wild discordant  voice of Satan interrupts the song unexpectedly for a moment. I have listened to it so many times but it still startles  me. Otherwise her songs are pure ethereal loveliness. You might start with The Origin of Fire (no devil voice,) or A feather on the Breath of God which sounds as poetic and pretty as the title.

St. Hildegard’s world view, like her poetry, was lush, verdant, filled with rich, vivid imagery. She was deeply in tune with nature and the divine as expressed in creation. She was profoundly  Incarnational, at once earthy and luminous in her spirituality and writing. 

Here is Viridissima Virga, a hymn she wrote in honor of Mary 

“ O branch of freshest green,

O hail! Within the windy gusts of saints

upon a quest you swayed and sprouted forth.

When it was time, you blossomed in your boughs—

“Hail, hail!” you heard, for in you seeped the sunlight’s warmth

like balsam’s sweet perfume.

For in you bloomed

so beautiful a flow’r, whose fragrance wakened

all the spices from their dried-out stupor.

And they all appeared in full viridity.

 Then rained the heavens dew upon the grass

and all the earth was cheered,

for from her womb she brought forth fruit

and  the birds of the sky

     have nests in her.

Then was prepared that food for humankind,

the greatest joy of feasts!

O Virgin sweet, in you can ne’er fail any joy.

All this Eve chose to scorn.

But now, let praise ring forth unto the Highest!”

Hildegard possessed unusual wisdom and compassion. People of every class came to her for medical advise, healing remedies, wise counsel, spiritual help or prayers. At times she even delivered babies. 

She was a Renaissance woman before the Renaissance, a polymath, someone brilliant in many subjects and incredibly creative. 

Her faith was absolute. When she was sure she was doing Gods will she was literally unmoveable. She ran into some trouble with religious authorities for burying a sinner who had been excommunicated on the holy grounds of her monastery. She insisted the man had confessed and received absolution and communion. She was not believed by the Bishop. She was ordered to have the man’s body removed. She refused.  Her sisters stood by her. She and they were placed under an interdict which meant they could not sing the Liturgy  of the Hours or receive the Sacraments. It was basically a mass excommunication. Hildegard became very ill in her spiritual anguish and could not leave her bed. When the Bishop sent six men to remove her, she became so heavy they could not, no matter how many worked together to lift her, be moved at all. It was considered a sign from God. 

The young man’s body remained where it had been buried. 

St. Hildegard Abbey, also known as St. Hildegardis Abbey, is located in Eibingen, along the Rhein river in Germany.  It was founded by Saint Hildegard  in 1165. It is still functioning and is visited by pilgrims from all over the world devoted to her and interested in her life and work. . 

Strangely she was not canonized  for more than 800 years after her death. Finally on May 10th, 2012 Pope Benedict XVI did so though she had been already widely regarded and locally venerated as a Saint after her death in 1179. This lapse was because the necessary paperwork was lost en route to the Vatican when her cause was first undertaken.  Pope Alexander III ordered the witnesses of her life and miracles to be gathered and interviewed again but somehow no one ever did so. 

Maybe the delay was because we need this brilliant Saint to arrive in our consciousness now in these times we live in. Who doesn’t need a beautiful vision, remarkable and holy art, gorgeous music and vivid poetry, showing us a spirit  that is unique in beauty with the ability to open our eyes in new ways to the glory and splendor of God? I think we all need that right now. 

Pope Benedict XVI elevated St. Hildegard  to the well deserved status of Doctor of the Church on October 7 of 2012 because of “her holiness of life and the originality of her teaching.” She is one of only four women Doctors of the Church along with St. Teresa of Avila, St. Catherine of Sienna and St.Therese of Lisieux. 

After Abbess Hildegard’s death the  nuns  of her monastery reported seeing her luminous figure several times carrying a bright light through their monastery. She was radiant and she was chanting. 

We celebrate St. Hildegard of Bingen on September 17. 

0

How to love in troubled times; St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)

How to love in troubled times; St. Edith Stein (Teresa Benedicta of the Cross)
1

St. Dymphna

Photo by Radwan Menzer on Pexels.com


700 years ago in Ireland a young girl left her home in the middle of the night as swiftly and silently as she could. She left with a priest,  two household servants and a court jester who were her friends.  She was not fleeing a forced marriage to a foreign prince or running away to a convent. She was running from her own father who seemed to have lost his mind after her mothers’ death and was trying to make his daughter marry him in her place. 

Dymphna and her friends were able to make it to a Belgian town called Gheel.  

She must have been a hard worker and had a compassionate heart. She and her friends established themselves in the town and Dymphna began caring for the sick and the poor. She had a special sympathy for people suffering from mental illness. She still shows that sympathy now through her intercession. 

Eventually her father, who was a minor Irish king, found out where she was. He had her priest executed as soon as he arrived and demanded Dymphna return home. When she refused he beheaded her on the spot. She was 15. 

The people of Gheel eventually built a church over where Dymphna was buried. Over the years it began to be noticed that healings happened at her tomb, especially healing from mental illness. 

Inspired by St. Dymphna’s special concern for the mentally ill the people of Gheel began to take into their homes the pilgrims who came to visit Dymphna’s tomb. In a time when the mentally ill were chained,  beaten and  locked away the families of Gheel made these sufferers part of their households with acceptance, freedom, dignity and whatever level of responsibility they could handle. Some stayed for a short time, some for the rest of their lives becoming members  of the family. 

Gheel became famous for this model of family care that seemed to work so well. This tradition is still ongoing though now combined with a hospital that is only used when absolutely necessary, and with modern medicine as part of overall treatment. 

Gheel’s example makes us want to rethink the way we treat the mentally ill, especially those whose conditions  are severe. Gheel shows us how it could be. 

Among us here the mentally unwell often end up without homes or anyone to assist them. Federal and state agencies set up to help these people are understaffed and overwhelmed. It is a testament to  serious failures on our society’s part. To see some poor emaciated sufferer shouting and waving his arms at traffic with toilet paper wrapped around his legs as I did last week breaks the heart. It’s wrong and we know it. Unfortunately our state is last in mental health access in the country. 

Gheel and St. Dymphna challenge us. How can we as people of faith contribute in a respectful and merciful way to necessary change, to the well being of people who suffer mental, emotional or neurological difficulties? Our society is not set up for them. How can we help? How can we change that? 

Perhaps we can begin by asking for St. Dymphna’s intercession and inspiration. 

St. Dymphna,  healer of mental and emotional suffering, pray for us. Pray for everyone in mental or emotional pain, especially those left on the outskirts without resources. You inspired a whole town to take people with mental  suffering into their homes so that they might live near you and the place you are buried.  They still come and stay with you and the people of your town today. Help us build a culture of compassion and acceptance so these children of God can live with dignity among us  as the people they are and so that the rest of us don’t miss out on what they can give, on their potential part in building community.  Show us the way. Amen.

St. Dymphna’s feast day is May 15th. She is the patron saint of the mentally ill, victims of incest and domestic abuse, and runaways.

2

Mary of Bethany; an oil poured out

Photo by Yaroslav Shuraev on Pexels.com

July 29 is the feast of Sts. Martha, Mary and Lazarus, the siblings of Bethany. Bethany was a little village not far from Jerusalem. It seems to have been Jesus’ favorite stop on his journeys, his home away from home.  Apparently these three friends were great company, and supportive of his mission. They had a house big enough for his travel companions, the food was great and Martha, Mary and Lazarus were always eager to be caught up on the latest adventures of Jesus and his itinerant followers.  

Martha and Lazarus’ sister Mary has been conflated with St. Mary Magdalene since the Middle Ages and this impression continued for centuries in Christian hagiography and art. Modern Biblical scholarship and a pronouncement of Pope Paul VI put an end to that mix up.  St. Mary Magdalen continues to be celebrated on July 22, and Mary of Bethany joined her brother and sister as her own person. 

This leaves us with three Gospel stories of St. Mary of Bethany. 

At the feet of Jesus (Luke 10:38-42)

Poor Martha is hosting all by herself, running ragged, resentful and starting to bang the pots and pans in the kitchen. Finally she decides to get her feelings out. She unburdens her heart right to Jesus. Isn’t that what we should do? Maybe not in front of the company, granted, but we should lay out burdens before him and be honest with him. He knows what’s inside us anyway. 

I like to think the Lord’s answer gave Martha peace. All the times Jesus has straightened me out when I was wrong or off course I have felt instant peace. Whether what he asked of me was easy or unpleasant I felt peace and that’s how I knew he was speaking. It seems Martha had taken on more than she was required to.  I have taken on tasks and responsibilities God was not asking me to and the first symptom I have is usually exhaustion followed by resentment and self righteousness. Eventually there will be an outburst. I hope Martha felt unbound and freed by what Jesus said to her. 

It’s easy to see Mary feeling affirmed and freed, protected and understood by Jesus’ defense of her. I recently read that the way she is sitting at Jesus’ feet listening to his teaching would have been controversial in her time and culture. It was something a disciple did. Rabbis weren’t supposed to have female disciples. The study of Torah and the pursuit of knowledge was for men only.  By sitting at Jesus’ feet as his student she was being quite bold and acting as an equal to the men. Jesus affirms her in this, allowing her to keep the place she has chosen.  

Of course we also see Mary of Bethany here as a beautiful model for Christian contemplatives. She is deeply attentive to Jesus, looking  at his face, internalizing all that he says, pondering in her heart.  

During a skit of this scene we acted out as a family my then four year-old daughter Maire had Mary get up, offer to take over the host duties, and invite Martha to take a turn at Jesus’ feet. I like that a lot. Maybe it was that way. 

Mourning Lazarus John (11:1–45)

Lazarus fell ill. His sisters cared for him and prayed over him, waiting for Jesus to come and heal him. They knew he could save their brother. They sent an urgent message. Mary would have sat by her brother’s bed keeping vigil, offering him her gift of profound presence and connection. Martha would have changed his blankets, kept a wet rag on his head, brewed medicinal teas, asked advice from the wise, sent for doctors, made favorite dishes she hoped he would eat. Sometimes they would have had to switch places and learn the other one’s ways of loving and serving. 

Jesus never comes, though they keep a lamp burning for him through every night in hopes he will. Every footfall outside, every stirring they hear they think perhaps it is Jesus or at least a message from him. They don’t understand. Why doesn’t he come? Why doesn’t he respond? 

Lazarus’ illness becomes imminently  life threatening, their anxiety for him so intense, neither of them sleeps at all. They hold him in his struggle for breath and as life ebbs away. 

They try to comfort one another. They ask each other, “Why did Jesus never come?” 

They wash and anoint his body with the women of their family winding him in scented burial cloths to bury him in their family tomb.  

The house is full of family friends and neighbors sitting shiva with them. https://www.shiva.com/learning-center/sitting-shiva

Finally Jesus shows. Martha as we have seen her do before, makes her thoughts and feelings known to him. She confronts Jesus while at the same time expressing her faith in him. She knows he could have saved her brother as he has saved so many others. She also has come to know and believe he is the Messiah and Son of God, just as Peter had also done and she says so. “Even now,” Martha says hopefully, “I believe.”

She runs to get her sister who is in the house with all the mourners and tells her Jesus is here and asking for her. 

It’s when Jesus sees Mary’s tears that he cries too. This is important to me, to all of us. Yes for some reason Jesus does allow bad things to happen to us. At the same time, as Madeleine Le’Engle says, everything that happens to us happens to God too. 

Mary also confronts Jesus, falling at his feet, her movement a desperate plea of prostate grief. 

He doesn’t ask Mary for a declaration of faith. Maybe he knew she had it in abundance already. He only responds with his tears and his actions. He gives her her brother back alive. 

Photo by Zaksheuskaya on Pexels.com

Anointing Jesus (John 12:1-8)

This is the beautiful story that captures the imagination so powerfully; Mary of Bethany interrupts dinner, unbinding her hair, carrying in an alabastron of outrageously expensive perfume worth a year’s wages. 

Since she seems to have been unmarried (as she is living at home) perhaps it had been meant for her dowry. To me this brings out an extra meaning. Perhaps she intended never to marry and to fully dedicate her life to Jesus, pouring out her love and devotion to him alone. 

Her contemplative nature, her attentiveness and connection to Jesus lead her to anticipate his death; the only one of his followers who understood that it was imminent, and maybe even what his death would mean.  

With compassion she comes to acknowledge both what he is about to endure and what he means to her. 

Have you ever smelled spikenard, aka nard?  It is not a floral scent but a sharp, pungent smell. It would have filled the whole house and the scent would have lingered for days and days in every room and on both Jesus and on her hair.

The others at the table were offended at her extravagance, saying the nard could have been sold and used to feed the poor. Jesus defends her. We will always be able to help the poor but we would not always have him. “She has done a beautiful thing for me.” She dries his feet with her hair.  

Women’s hair was supposed to be covered in public and especially in the presence of men who were not their husbands. Here our Mary of Bethany unveils and not only that dries the feet of Jesus with her hair. I wonder what those present would have made of that? 

I’m thinking of the spiritual marriage written about and experienced by the great mystics of our faith such as Sts. Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Rose of Lima, Catherine of Sienna among others, in which the soul becomes one with God. Maybe Mary of Bethany was experiencing this or had. Maybe this bold and lavish gesture was her response, her understanding of his destiny born of that union and love. 

Wouldn’t you love to be able to comfort Jesus with your compassion and love? To do something that is deeply meaningful for him? To pour out your love diffusing its fragrance through all his house, to smell it on your hair for days to remind you, knowing he also carried it? To remember his words, that you had done a beautiful thing for him? 

We can. When we love, when we serve, when we pray like an oil poured out to the One we love. 

 Your anointing oils are fragrant; 

your name is oil poured out; 

therefore maidens love you.

Song of Songs 1:3

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑