“LEAVE HER ALONE. LET HER KEEP THIS FOR THE DAY OF MY BURIAL. YOU ALWAYS HAVE THE POOR WITH YOU, BUT YOU DO NOT ALWAYS HAVE ME.” JN 12:1-11
Humbly submit your will to God (Thy Will be done) and consecrate yourself to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through Mary and Joseph.
Mary, Martha, and Lazarus are Jesus’s best friends. Jesus decides to spend some of His last days with those closest to Him while on earth. During this Holy Week, take time to read the Passion again and find a book that explains it. It is wise also to read about what happened to a victim of Roman crucifixion, so we can see what Christ endured for our sins. Jesus, the God Man is about to leave this earth and fulfill His mission of dying for our sins and most importantly resurrecting. Before our death, we will want to leave our best advice behind to our family members. Jesus is no exception. Some of His greatest teachings come from Holy Week and His family is all of humanity.
His Words are very important and should be taken to heart. Write them down and keep them some place to reread throughout the year, not just Lent. Fast every Friday throughout the year to remember this Holy Week, especially Good Friday (This is required for all Catholics, not optional). Do the Stations of the Cross with great devotion every Friday throughout the year to remember Christ’s Passion and Death. Go to Mass every Sunday, it is a mini-Easter to remember Christ’s resurrection. Go to Mass every day if possible to allow God to bring you back to the foot of the Cross; what was present in history is now present in mystery. Be transformed by Jesus in the Eucharist.
Find a book on the Passion of Christ and read it every Friday throughout the year. If you study and gain knowledge of Christ and His Passion, you will begin to understand His love for you. When you begin to understand His love for you, you will desire to love Him back more than anything in this world. Then, you will start fighting sin and desire a resolute heart. Your eyes will always be set on heaven and not things of the earth. You will desire to pray without ceasing. The saints were all transformed at the foot of the cross. Allow God to love you, it is His greatest desire. How do we know? He gave up His life for each of us, total self-sacrifice. We, in turn, give up our lives for others.
In Peter Kreeft’s book “Jesus Shock”, he talks about adoration. He uses today’s Gospel as defining adoration. Mary was a prostitute and had earned her money giving her body to men. She didn’t care as much about the acts, but the money so she could have more stuff. When she repents and follows Jesus, she recognizes “stuff” doesn’t matter. She gives up an entire year’s wages to buy the perfume she pours on Jesus. She adores Jesus with her whole self and holds nothing back with her material goods. At the sight of true adoration, Kreeft says Judas cannot take it. This is when the devil enters his heart and he goes to betray Jesus. When we see someone give themselves up totally and completely to do what they were made for, adore their God, we either follow or run. Jesus forces us to make a decision.
Are you really all in with Jesus? I have work to do, too. May we continue to strive to be more like Mary and give all! This Holy Week is a good time to commit, repent, and strive even harder.
Today’s challenge: Pray. Ask Jesus to reveal His heart to you during this Holy Week. Fast, suffer, offer your suffering up with Christ’s suffering, prepare for joy. Reread the Passion in the Scriptures each day this week and reflect on it, put yourself into the Passion with Christ. What is dominating your thoughts? Give it to Jesus this week and trust that He will take care of it.
Watch Fr. PJ Voegeli’s “Massercise” video to prepare yourself for a lot of Masses this Holy Week! https://youtu.be/0873IoUueCk
Be a servant, Become a saint!
#Christian YODO (You Only Die Once; we will live again!)
This is saying that if we are doing something good (like giving to the poor) but we are doing it for our own good, it is as if we were not doing any good in the eyes of God.
“LEAVE HER ALONE. LET HER KEEP THIS FOR THE DAY OF MY BURIAL. YOU ALWAYS HAVE THE POOR WITH YOU, BUT YOU DO NOT ALWAYS HAVE ME.” JN 12:1-11. Something that stood out to me about this was that Jesus is saying that his disciples will always help the poor, but he will not be helping them.
I think this scripture is just a big reminder to keep your devotion too Christ strong, like praying rosaries or doing the stations of the cross at home with family. Also reminding us to keep Jesus in our heart and learn to love like him.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is spending His last days with His best friends. Judas is greedy and wants Martha to sell the fragrance instead of anointing Jesus’s feet. Jesus told Judas that he will always have the poor with Him, but won’t have Jesus. I feel like in this story, Satan was trying to manipulate Martha through Judas. We need to try to keep Satan out, and focus on Jesus. We need to try to not be tempted by the devil, and if we aren’t tempted, Jesus will be right next to us through the whole thing.
“When we see someone give themselves up totally and completely to do what they were made for, adore their God, we either follow or run. Jesus forces us to make a decision.” This stood out to me because I never thought about it this way but it makes sense. Like, for example, if someone who is never Catholic sees someone doing demonic things they will either join in and start worshiping the wrong person/thing or not do anything because they do not know God and do not strive to live for him. But if someone who is Catholic was in this situation it would be morally right to try and stop them without violence.
Jesus says in the Gospel that we will not always have Him, but we will always have the poor. So when Mary, one of Jesus’ disciples, anointed him with extremely expensive perfume people then get a little mad( Judas). Judas says that they could have sold it and gave it to the poor but he was thinking only of stealing some of the money.
Jesus says that he will not always be with us, but the poor always will be. In another gospel Jesus says that whatever you do to they least of your neighbors you do unto me. Jesus might not always be here physically with us but he is with us through others.
“Why was this oil not sold for three hundred days’ wages
and given to the poor?” He said this not because he cared about the poor
but because he was a thief and held the money bag
and used to steal the contributions.”
This part stuck out to me the most due to it telling people that not everyone who seems like they care, actually cares. All Judas wanted was the money, the popularity from Jesus. But we should want none of that, we should want love, respect, ect from him. We shouldn’t be selfish, arrogant, ect. If you are maybe you just have the wrong people around you, the wrong friends. Friends shouldn’t push you to do anything you don’t want to do. Friends shouldn’t be fake, you shouldn’t be fake. You should care about others, and not your selfish desires. if you need help with that, go pray to God, he is and will always be there for you. Go talk to him. there is no excuse for you not to talk to him. He is always there to help, to listen, to talk. There is no excuse for acting like you are.
Lent is one of the hardest times of the year if you give up something that is taking you away from God. It is very hard to just give up something. but sometimes we forget and don’t ask God to help us in doing the right thing and fasting from it. God will always help us if we ask him to help us.
It was telling me to stop, and help someone if and when they need help!
So Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Let her keep this for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” This really stuck out to me because it is very true. We always have the “poor” around us but really we should always have God with us. Being all in with Christ is so important. We should always strive to be closer to Him and make him apart of our everyday lives.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus visits Lazarus, Mary, and Martha. Mary anoints Jesus’s feet with expensive oil,but Judas scolds her for not giving it to the poor. But Jesus says it’s okay because He won’t be here long.
Jesus was extremely nervous in His last week before he was to be crucified because He knew all along that He was going to die. He was even sweating blood in the garden of Gethsemane, but in all of His suffering, He knew to look to God for help. This is how we should act when we find ourselves in a tough situation. Always trusting in God and His ultimate power is how we can live how God wanted us to.
Jesus says in the Gospel that we will not always have Him, but we will always have the poor. So when Mary, one of Jesus’ disciples, anointed him with extremely expensive perfume people then got a little mad( Judas). Judas says that they could have sold it and gave it to the poor but he was thinking only of stealing some of the money.
Today’s Gospel talks about how Mary anointed Jesus’ feet and dried them with her hair. This is an act of kindness and respect toward Jesus. Mary loved Jesus so she followed him, she believed in the Lord, so she followed him, and to thank him, she anointed Jesus’ feet.
Judas on the other side, wanted money. He wanted to steal the money that would have been used for the oil so he asked her why it was not sold. Jesus replied by telling him that she should keep it until Jesus’ burial. All Judas wanted was money, so that’s why he gave Jesus to the Romans, that’s why he betrayed Jesus.
Money can make people very greedy. That’s why St. Francis decided to live a life of poverty. His father was very greedy and rich and Francis decided he did not wanna be so he gave up his life to poverty.
Jesus defends Mary, saying the oil was meant for his burial day. He shows that this is a critical, singular moment, unlike the ongoing opportunity to care for the poor. It shows Jesus preparing for his burial, accepting adoration. Jesus is preparing for the day he is crucified. “Leave her alone. Let her keep this for the day of my burial.
You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” This is foreshadowing that soon he will be gone.
In today’s scripture reading, It really stuck out to me because it says that Jesus would spend time with Lazarus, Mary, and Martha (His best friends) in his days before his death. Jesus died on the cross for you, he is about to leave this earth and fulfill his mission to save us from our sins and be able to resurrect from the dead. Before our death, we will want to leave our best advice behind our family members. He did this he gave his teachings as our advice to help us grow closer to him. His Words are very important and should be taken to heart. We have lent ourselves to receive Jesus on Easter. This is why we should fast, pray, give, go to stations of the cross, fast from meat on Fridays, and give something up for 40 days. Your eyes will always be set on heaven and not things of the earth. You will desire to pray without ceasing. This time helps us grow closer to the Lord and helps us to be able to realize that God is the most important thing in this world, not money, phones, and any other object that distracts us and pulls us away from the Lord because God is everything we need. Have a good rest of your day!!! God loves you he died for your sins and he will never stop loving you!!! God Bless!! Viva Cristo Rey!!!
In today’s Gospel, Mary of Bethany anointed Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume oil. The smell of the oil filled the house. Judas said it was a “waste” even though it really wasn’t. God defended Mary of Bethany because He knew that Judas was wrong and Mary was right to use the perfume oil. God showed His love to Mary and defended her. Jesus will always defend us no matter what as long as it is for a good reason.