Daily reflections through Holy Week
By ✠Jerome OSJV, Primus of the Old Roman Apostolate

Holy Monday: The Fragrance of Love, the Shadow of Death

Feria Secunda in Hebdomada Sancta – Tridentine Liturgy (Pre-1955)

If Palm Sunday casts the triumphant but somber shadow of the Cross over the week to come, Holy Monday draws us more intimately into the household of Bethany—into the closeness of friendship, the costly nature of love, and the first outward steps of Christ toward His appointed death.

The traditional Roman liturgy for Holy Monday, unchanged until the mid-twentieth century, is stark, tender, and heavy with impending grief. The chants, readings, and prayers form a mosaic of divine foreknowledge and human response—welcoming Christ with love or plotting against Him in hatred. Each gesture, each word from today’s Mass calls the soul to stand either with Mary of Bethany in adoration, or with Judas in murmuring criticism.

The Liturgical Structure: A Gathering Storm

Holy Monday retains all the Lenten austerity that intensifies in Passiontide. The Mass is offered in violet vestments, without Gloria or Alleluia. The chants are drawn from the Psalms, anticipating suffering yet grounded in hope. The silence grows deeper. The Crucifix remains veiled. The Church is beginning to walk with Christ—not in theory, but in real time.

The Gospel from John 12:1–9 is the central moment of this day. Six days before the Passover, Jesus comes to Bethany—to the house of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. This visit, in its quiet domestic setting, marks a profound turning point in the Passion narrative. Christ, already marked for death by the high priests, chooses to spend His final days not in hiding, but with friends, entering fully into the human tenderness that will make His Passion all the more painful.

“Mary, therefore, took a pound of ointment of right spikenard… and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair.”

Mary’s Gesture: Extravagance or Prophecy?

The Church Fathers, particularly St. Gregory the Great and Origen, saw in this moment a deeply mystical significance. Mary’s action is not merely emotional—it is liturgical, prophetic, and deeply sacrificial. She pours out precious oil, not on Christ’s head as a king, but on His feet as one already anointed for death.

The value of the ointment—“three hundred denarii,” nearly a year’s wages—scandalizes Judas. To him, such love is wasteful. To Christ, it is beautiful.

“Let her alone: that she may keep it against the day of My burial.”

In this statement, Christ accepts her offering not as sentiment, but as preparation. Mary sees what the others do not: that the road to Jerusalem is the road to the tomb. Her love is not reactive—it is preemptive. Her devotion is not convenient—it is costly.

In contrast, Judas’ words reveal the practical mind detached from love. His feigned concern for the poor masks a heart already lost. In Mary, we see the disciple. In Judas, the betrayer in embryo.

The Epistle: Isaiah’s Suffering Servant

The Epistle from Isaiah 50:5–10 is one of the clearest and most stirring portraits of Christ’s meek acceptance of suffering:

“I have given my body to the strikers, and my cheeks to them that plucked them: I have not turned away my face from them that rebuked me and spit upon me.”

This is not passive resignation. It is active surrender. The Servant does not seek suffering, but neither does He resist it. He knows that to redeem, He must endure—and to endure, He must be rooted in obedience: “The Lord God hath opened my ear, and I do not resist.”

For the faithful, this reading sets the tone: the way of Christ is not one of dramatic resistance or triumphalism, but of loving surrender to the will of the Father. It is a call to spiritual courage—not loud, but steady. Not impulsive, but grounded in contemplation.

Spiritual Intention: To Love Before the Cross

Holy Monday is a day to examine the quality of our love for Christ. Not its warmth or intensity, but its sacrificial character.

• Are we like Mary, pouring out what is costly because we know who He is?
• Or are we like Judas, calculating the value of everything and seeing devotion as extravagance?

The traditional liturgy does not explain these questions—it asks them, silently and insistently.

Will we anoint Christ with our love now, or only lament when He has passed by?

Holy Monday calls us to love Him while we still have Him. This day in Bethany reminds us that time is short, and that adoration offered now, while Christ is hidden in the tabernacle or disguised in the suffering, is the greatest act of preparation for His Passion.

Lessons and Applications

1. Love must be willing to waste itself
Mary’s action is a scandal to utilitarians. But divine love is not measured by cost. It is measured by self-gift. The saints have always understood this. Lavish liturgy, generous charity, hidden prayer, all appear wasteful to the world. But they are the fragrance of true love, filling the house.

2. Judas begins not with betrayal, but with criticism
Notice how Judas does not yet leave. He criticizes. He murmurs. He disguises pride as virtue. This is where betrayal often begins—in a hardened heart disguised as realism. The soul tempted to justify withdrawal from God often starts by criticizing the piety of others.

3. Bethany is the school of contemplation
Mary does not speak. She acts. And her action becomes a sacrament of preparation. Each time we choose silent, loving adoration, we prepare the way for Christ to enter more deeply into our lives—even if that entry comes by way of the Cross.

Practical Devotions for Holy Monday

• Spend time in silence before the Blessed Sacrament, pouring out your heart like Mary’s ointment—without words if need be.
• Read John 12:1–9 slowly. Imagine being in the room. What do you smell? See? Feel? What would you do?
• Examine your motives. Are you generous with Christ? Or do you grumble internally at the cost of discipleship?
• Offer a small act of costly love—a sacrifice of time, attention, or comfort—for no other reason than that He is worthy.
• Pray Psalm 35 or Psalm 50 (Miserere), in reparation for past coldness or criticism toward devotion, either your own or others’.

Conclusion: The Fragrance That Fills the Church

The liturgy of Holy Monday is like the spikenard itself: rich, pungent, and clinging. It lingers in the soul. It calls us to a love that is not economical, but extravagant. It reminds us that our Savior is not far away—He is reclining at table with us, waiting to be loved, waiting to be known before He is taken from us.

“Amen, I say to you, wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in the whole world, that also which she hath done, shall be told for a memorial of her.”
(Matt. 26:13)

Let us do likewise. Let us anoint Christ, today, with the perfume of our love—before the tomb is sealed and the world sleeps.

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Lent Conferences 2025

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