Holy Monday: the Fragrance of Bethany and Cleansing of Hearts
The Medieval Holy Week Series:
Today, we barely think of Holy Monday as anything other than another Monday. However, the Gospel reading for the day is John 12:1-11, which recounts the story of Mary in Bethany pouring expensive oil on Jesus's feet and drying his feet with her hair.
Shawn would have experienced something very different, in his years in medieval Scotland. Christians of the time took the day more seriously. They meditated both on this anointing and the cleansing of the Temple. Both stories spoke to the medieval world’s concerns about wealth, charity, corruption, and the price of betrayal.
The Cleansing of the Temple: A Mirror for the Medieval Church
The next day....On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’[c]? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’
Christ overturning the money‑changers’ tables struck close to home. Medieval sermons used this moment to critique:
Clerical greed
Simony (buying church offices)
Corrupt guild practices
Unfair market dealings
Some towns even held ritual inspections of church finances on this day.
The Anointing at Bethany: A Lesson in Extravagant Devotion
Six days before the Passover, Jesus arrived in Bethany, where Lazarus lived,[a] the man whom Jesus had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a litron[b] of very expensive perfume made of pure nard and anointed Jesus’ feet. She wiped his feet with her hair, and the house became filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
Pure love, love without counting the cost.
Prophetic insight
Courage to defy social norms
The fragrance the house became a metaphor for holiness spreading through the world.
Judas’s objection (“Why wasn’t this sold and given to the poor?”) was interpreted not as frugality but as hypocrisy, because as the story goes on to tell us, Judas was pilfering from the disciples' common purse. It is, thus, a warning against false piety.
Advocating for challenging social norms seems like more of a twenty-first century theme than medieval. Some examples help illustrate what that meant in those days:
- St. Bernard of Clairvaux, in the 12th century, in one sermon praised Mary for 'loving beyond measure, without calculation.' This challenged the norm that wealth should be used rationally or usefully and rebuked merchants chasing profit, nobles hoarding wealthy, and clergy living extravagantly. He showed Mary's 'wasteful' anointing to be a holy act, while Judas's suggestion of using the money practically was actually hypocrisy.
- The Speculum Ecclesiae of the 13th century is a collection of sermons that includes one for Holy Monday which states: 'Mary understood what the apostles did not.' The sermon used the story of Mary anointing Jesus' feet to highlight women's spiritual insight, remind the male clergy to walk humbly, and critique pride in learning with the example of an unlearned woman whose love of Jesus mattered more than any learning. These things went, to a degree, against medieval norms.
- Dominican Lenten sermons of the 13th and 14th centuries used the story of Mary to warn against false piety. A surviving sermon contrasts Mary's silent and sincere devotion with Judas's greed masked as charity (and thus piety). The sermon warns: 'There are many Judases who speak of the poor but love the purse.' This was a critique of corrupt clergy, wealthy patrons donating only for social status and guild leaders who donated to churches while exploiting workers.
Fasting, Almsgiving, and Household Duties
Holy Monday, reflecting both of these readings, was a day for:
Giving alms
Reconciling debts
Cleaning the home
Preparing for the Triduum (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday)
It was a day to “set one’s house in order,” both literally and spiritually.
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With Christ's action at the Temple, I am reminded that Christ is all things, as God and as Logos, the Word, in complement to Sophos (the Father, Wisdom), and Agio Pneuma (the Holy Spirit). And, most illustratively at the Temple, willing to use force to set the House of His Father to right. What might be referred to as Christ Militant.
ReplyDeleteIn the daily Church, Christ Militant is concerned with. spiritual struggle - our daily battle against sin, temptation, and the devil. Also fighting the good fight of faith and striving for holiness. And lastly, as soldiers of God, the armor of God, and as followers of Christ in a hostile and fallen world.
When we turn the other cheek, up to and including losing our lives for Christ, we are not acquiescing. We are not hiding from faith. We are not knuckling under. We are standing up for Christ even as He stood against sin, eternally. Our fate is not of this world, as we will all succumb. Our path is to recognize the next world and our Savior, as the race that we truly run, declining the temptation of this world so that, after the cleansing fire as needed, we are purified and deserving of the purity of Heaven.
Praise be, indeed.