{"id":827,"date":"2015-04-19T05:00:16","date_gmt":"2015-04-19T05:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sjcmetheology.wpengine.com\/?p=827"},"modified":"2015-04-19T05:00:16","modified_gmt":"2015-04-19T05:00:16","slug":"let-us-bring-the-oil-of-mercy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/let-us-bring-the-oil-of-mercy\/","title":{"rendered":"Let Us Bring the Oil of Mercy"},"content":{"rendered":"

When someone has been hurt \u2013 either by another person, or through his\/her own mistakes \u2013 it\u2019s natural to try to offer comfort. \u201cDon\u2019t pour salt in the wound\u201d is a clich\u00e9d expression, but it points toward a temptation for many of us. In our insecurity, jealousy and weakness, it can\"Salt\"<\/a> be all too easy to secretly (if somewhat unconsciously) delight<\/em> in another\u2019s \u201cwounds.\u201d An honest look inside our hearts will likely turn up moments when we\u2019ve impulsively grasped that salt shaker and seasoned<\/em> the wound of an enemy\u2026or a friend. We may not have shaken that salt directly on<\/em> the wounds; but perhaps we passed the shaker around our \u201cprivate table\u201d and shared it with anyone who\u2019d take it. Inevitably, any satisfaction we feel at our superiority before the wounded is short-lived, and the salt ends up stinging us, too.<\/p>\n

Once a sinful woman poured salt on Jesus\u2019 not-yet-wounded feet when she washed them with her tears.<\/a> While Jesus dines\u00a0at the home of a Pharisee named Simon, a woman enters the house and prostrates herself before Him. She washes His feet with her tears, dries them with her hair, and then anoints them with ointment. Simon is appalled at the audacity of a public sinner \u2013 and a woman \u2013 bursting into his home and touching his guest. We have to wonder, though, if the Pharisee was upset over his perception that the Blessed Savior was being \u201cassaulted\u201d, or if the salt in the woman\u2019s tears aggravated his own wounded pride.<\/p>\n

You did not give me a kiss, but she has not ceased kissing my feet since the time I entered.<\/em> You did not anoint my head with oil, but she anointed my feet with ointment.<\/em> (Lk 7:45-46) Jesus chides Simon, not because He felt slighted as a guest, but because He desired Simon\u2019s humble surrender to His love and mercy. Unlike the woman who burst in and, in an \u201cunbecoming display\u201d, crudely washed and anointed the Lord, Simon stubbornly clung to his status and his perceived<\/em> knowledge of God and the Law. For Simon, legality, protocol and etiquette were essential to maintain. For the sinful woman, reaching out in desperate weakness and utter humility to seek the Lord\u2019s mercy was as natural as taking a breath. Once she\u2019d been convicted<\/em> of whatever sins she\u2019d been bound by, and convinced<\/em> that Jesus offered mercy, <\/em>no obstacle could keep her from receiving it. The salt in her tears and the perfumed ointment she liberally poured on Him prepared the Lord\u2019s feet for the pilgrimage He would soon make toward His Passion and Crucifixion.<\/p>\n

The second Sunday of Easter in the Eastern Catholic and Orthodox Churches commemorates the Holy Myrrh-Bearing Women. Like the woman who burst into Simon\u2019s \"Myrrh<\/a>house, these women (who were His faithful followers)\u00a0bathed Jesus\u2019<\/em> path to Calvary<\/em> with their tears. Although His hastily wrapped body could not be properly prepared for burial, the women knew they\u2019d return to the tomb after the Sabbath. Then they would anoint the Lord with the sweet-smelling ointment that was their<\/em> communication of mercy to <\/em>Him<\/em>. All four Evangelists tell what happened when the Holy Myrrh-Bearers made for the tomb to fulfill their duty. The accounts are similar, but the differences display the range of human emotion and the spiritual questions we all experience. Matthew<\/a> and Luke<\/a> tell us that when the women saw the empty tomb and heard the angel announce the Lord\u2019s resurrection they were frightened \u2013 yet they ran to the Apostles and told them what they\u2019d seen. Mark<\/a> says the women were \u201cseized with trembling and bewilderment,\u201d and left the tomb without telling anyone what they witnessed. Finally, John<\/a> has only Mary Magdalene \u2013 the woman from whom seven demons had been cast out – finding the empty tomb and immediately running to inform Peter and the other Apostles.<\/p>\n

Each account of the women discovering the empty tomb should resonate in our hearts. Hopefully we seek Him out of love, but sometimes it\u2019s out of sheer duty<\/em> (fulfilling my Sunday \u201cobligation,\u201d or \u201cfollowing the rules\u201d of the Church.) We look for the Lord in difficult times, to be rid of whatever \u201cdemons\u201d haunt us, yet sometimes we feel like He\u2019s not there<\/em>, as if He\u2019s vacated our lives just as surely as He did the tomb. We fear<\/em> the unknown, what God might be calling us to do\u2026or to endure. We stay quiet<\/em>; quiet before God (slacking in our prayer life, forgetting Him in our everyday busyness), and quiet before others (focusing only on ourselves<\/em>). Instead, we must go after the Lord like the Women, with an urgency that is not born of duty but of love. In our fear and woundedness, standing before the mystery of life and wondering how God is operative in it, we must seek Him<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The \u201csalt\u201d of our sins and our suffering are poured into<\/em> the wounds of Jesus<\/em>, and He freely accepts it. Pope Francis<\/a> says Jesus retains His wounds in heaven as a means of absorbing our sins and transforming them into mercy and forgiveness. When we pour out the \u201csalt\u201d of our sins and whatever baggage we carry into Jesus\u2019 wounds, we become myrrh-bearers<\/em> too. Surrendering to God\u2019s forgiveness and embracing His love \u201canoints\u201d Jesus\u2019 wounds and become our<\/em> humble \u201cmercy offering.\u201d Jesus accepts our offering just as He accepted the anointing from the sinful woman. But in accepting our \u201cmercy\u201d He asks us to put down the salt shakers and become myrrh-bearers (love-bearers<\/em>) to the world.<\/p>\n

\u2018Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.\u2019<\/em> Mt. 25:40<\/p>\n

Ann Koshute<\/strong> teaches theology for Saint Joseph’s College Online.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When someone has been hurt \u2013 either by another person, or through his\/her own mistakes \u2013 it\u2019s natural to try to offer comfort. \u201cDon\u2019t pour salt in the wound\u201d is a clich\u00e9d expression, but it points toward a temptation for … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}