A reading of the holy gospel according to John. Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. There, that is in Bethany, they made a supper for Jesus. Martha served and Lazarus was one of those at table with Jesus. Mary, of course, the sister of Lazarus and of Martha, took a pound of costly ointment of pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped them with her hair.
The The whole house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, he who was to betray Jesus said, why was this ointment not sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor? This Judas said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief. And as he had the money box, he used it to take what was put into it. And Jesus said in reply, let the woman alone.
Let her keep it for the day of my burial. The poor, you have always with you, but you do not always have me. When the great crowd of Jews learned that Jesus was in Bethany, they came not only on account of Jesus, but also to see Lazarus whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus also to death because on account of him, many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus. And And this is the gospel of the lord.
In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. There is phrase or a sentence in this reading that that we've had this morning from Saint John which has caused a good bit of trouble down the years, especially in our more modern times. And that's our lord's statement, the poor you have with you always. Now that's been used, believe it or not. That has been used to justify a disregard of the poor.
I've read that myself. There's a footnote in one of Ruskin's books, The Stones of Venice. You'll find it there. Our blessed lord did not mean that. I am not too sure what he meant.
After all, when you start talking about meaning you're talking about interpretation. But there's one thing clear that from a certain point of view Mary was wasting money. Why pour precious ointment over somebody's dusty feet which does, what does it do? The fragrance fill the house. Where that same amount of money, which might have been considerable in this case, think of a couple bottles of Chanel number five, it could have been used to relieve the poor.
It's a fact. And Jesus says, let the woman alone, the poor you have with you always. Now there's a familiar ring here. There is a very familiar ring, and I'm sure you have heard it and I have heard it ad nauseam. One of the latest expressions was, why does the Vatican sell all of its works of art and give that money to the poor?
That's not so long ago that that was proposed. Right over in Georgetown, just within the last few years, when father English and the people of the of that parish, the people who were going to pay for it, the people who are going to give their money for the refurbishing of the church which needed it. What happened? Well, you know, they were picketed. They they they it even became a police case.
Everybody got in on the act. Why spend all this money when you have men sleeping out on the hot grates on the streets of Washington? You've heard this argument. If you've traveled in certain parts of the world, if you're with a tour, if you're with your couple of Americans, on the one hand, they see what they call abject poverty. Of course, we don't have abject poverty in The United States, you know.
We all know that. So they see that and they say, why have these magnificent buildings, magnificent churches, and here the poor are suffering? You've heard this, Earth. Christ said, leave the woman alone. The poor you have with you always.
He did not rebuke Mary. He there's no way you can get out of interpreting this as favoring what Mary did. He approved it. It's just one little fact to keep in your mind when all this talk goes about. You see we've lost sight of God.
That's the essence of thing. Have you how many people? How many how many picketing lines have you heard about when it was a matter of spending millions and millions on a museum or buying a work of art for two or three millions of dollars? Don't hear a word about it. I've never heard about it.
I've heard about some picketing when you want to build an atomic reactor, But I I I I didn't hear very much in the line of any great opposition from the public that 100,000,000,000 that went to put Columbia up there that's flying around us now, that that should money should have been taken and given to the poor. I never heard a word about it. Of course, lot of people thought it was wasted. You see we've lost the idea in many instances of God Almighty. That's the that's the the basis of it.
We forget that the first commandment isn't to love my neighbor. The first commandment isn't to love myself. The first commandment is to love God almighty. That's the first commandment. I am the Lord thy God.
You shall have no other gods before me. We forget it, and we forget it in our own lives. Do we give God the best? Do we? Or do we give him the dregs?
I'm talking about material possessions. Do we think of this in our own in our own personal lives, in the daily expenditures we made? I was down in Cartagena on on Sunday. You'd see people put a 5 peso note in the collection box. That's equivalent to 10¢.
And they did go out and they'd spend a dollar and a half for a cocktail. So they thought to participate in the the bread of the Lord was worth all the amount of 10¢. These are facts of life. Where where is our heart? What are we with?
Because this is the answer. It isn't what we God doesn't need anything from us. Let's get this out of our head. He doesn't need anything from us if he's God. And I work on this supposition he is God.
We need him. He doesn't need us. He first loved us before we ever thought of loving him. Our love of him is even his own gift to us. We can't love God even without in the first reading today, you have there a wonderful sentence where God gives breath and spirit to his people.
Breath and spirit to his people comes from God. And so let let us just reflect where is God in my daily life in in these little tiny decisions I make? Maybe bigger decisions, but not in great big ones. Life isn't made up of them. We make a few in a whole lifetime.
When the girl says I do and the young man says, will you? That's a big decision, but you don't keep making it every day of the week. Life is made up of of little decisions along the way. They're the ones to watch out for. Is God in them?
Because the first commandment is, thou shalt love the Lord thy god with thy whole mind, with thy whole heart, with thy whole spirit. That's what god said. Are we about to do it in our daily lives? That's the question. And you know the answer?
It's how we live them. In the name of the father, the son, holy spirit. Amen.