A priest friend of mine in Boston is battling pancreatic cancer. He has faced his illn= ess with grace and optimism, pursuing treatments and lifting other people up by= his attitude. Friends and members= of his church have been spending time with him, driving him places, and helping with his work. All of them are hoping for the best, but they are responding so generously because the illn= ess is so serious. When someone y= ou love faces a life-threatening situation, you may perform extraordinary sacrifices for that person. Y= ou may spend time you didn’t know you had and money you thought you needed to save.

Apparently this is the situation of the woman who mysteri= ously appears at the beginning of Mark’s account of the Passion of Jesus. A few days before his death, intui= ting that Jesus’ life is in danger, she walks into a men’s club R= 11; dinner at the house of Simon the leper.&nb= sp; She has with her a costly jar containing expensive perfume. She breaks the jar and pours the o= il over the head of Jesus. The m= en are shocked. They accuse her of w= asting money. At Passover people made donations to the poor, and the men try to impress Jesus by emphasizing in between courses of the meal how this woman should apportion her money.

Jesus says a surprising thing. He lets the woman off the hook. He tells the men, “the poor = you will always have with you. . . but you will not always have me.” He doesn’t mean that poverty= is inevitable, and there’s nothing you can do about it. We certainly should do something a= bout it. But Jesus interprets the woman’s actions this way: she is a prophet; she is predicting his pas= sion. He will not be physically with the= m much longer; now is the time to appreciate him, to listen to him, to watch him, = and to proclaim who he is. In the= Old Testament you poured oil over the heads of priests and kings. This woman continues the message o= f Palm Sunday, that Jesus is the Messiah, the anointed one, our great high priest = and the Son of David the King.

The perfume comes from a plant called “spikenard= 221; because it has thorns resembling spikes. Perhaps Mark wants us to see another foreshadowing of the passion.

Palm Sunday reminds us to take the opportunities we have = to lavish generosity on those who mean something to us. We hope that all the people we lov= e will be with us for many more years, but if we learn they are in danger because = of any threat to their life, our attitude toward them shifts, and our behavior tow= ard them becomes more focused. Ho= w it would please Jesus if we treated everyone that way all the time – not just those we love, but those we don’t even know, including the poor;= and not just at the end of someone’s life, but every day.