Lent with Bossuet: Meditations on the Gospel (3)

Profusion of Perfume on Jesus’ Head and Feet

To perfume Jesus is to give Him praise; to perfume the head of Jesus, however, is to praise and to adore His divinity, for the head of Jesus Christ, says St. Paul, is God. (I Cor. 11:3). To perfume His feet, therefore, is to adore His humanity and His weakness. When Mary wiped the feet of Jesus with her hair, she placed at His sacred feet her greatest ornament, her very head, with all the vanities and fineries of the century. All is sacrificed to Jesus. We wish to please Him only. Could the hair which has touched the feet of Jesus ever serve vanity? It is thus that Jesus wishes to be loved. He alone is worthy of such love, and of such great homage.

Therefore, we not only pour these rich perfumes upon Jesus, we break the alabaster box wherein they were confined, says Saint Mark, in order that He may possess all. His head and His feet dripped with precious perfumes, and the entire house was scented with them.

The example of the piety of these holy women has filled the Church with its good odor.