I want to tell you a little story about something that happened at my former parish in Sarasota before I retired.  Over the years, I’ve had several priest associates, and one of the last priest associates that I had, Fr. Charleston Wilson, is one of the most gifted persons I’ve ever known, and one of his gifts was his sense of smell. He has a very keen sense of smell, and if you’re wearing a particular cologne or perfume, he can tell you what it is, especially if it’s high end.  He enjoyed wearing cologne himself, in fact.

Before a main service at Church of the Redeemer, there are usually 14 people gathered in the sacristy – 4 or 5 priests, 5 or 6 lay Eucharistic ministers, 2 senior high school servers, a Verger, and a Master of Ceremonies.  Everyone vests in the sacristy and then the prayers of preparation are said.  All of the clergy at Redeemer used the same set of vestments, of course, and whenever a priest would put on a dalmatic that Fr. Charleston had used recently, the priest would know that it was he who had used it because the cologne he had been wearing was still strongly noticeable on the vestment.  

One of our other clergy hated that smell, and when he put on the vestment Fr. Charleston had worn, he would always make a short comment showing his lack of appreciation for the smell, and it would usually be something like “Yuck!”  Everyone in the sacristy got a kick out of that whenever it happened.  And truth be known, I think the wearer of the perfume tended to lay it on a little thicker as a result!

Funnier even than that, I happened to go to our Diocesan camp to celebrate a Mass there, and when I put on the chasuble, I smelled that priest’s cologne.  It had been over a month since he’d been there and worn that chasuble!

Not to belabor, I can’t not say something about something that happened this week.  French President Emmanuel Macron was in the news because it just came out that he wears so much cologne that aides “scent” his presence before he enters the room. It is seen as a deliberate attribute of power.  Apparently he sprays on industrial amounts of Dior Eau Savage.  It is seen as an element of his authority.

Perfumes are big business. I did a little research, which is so easy to do these days!  Shumukh, the Spirit of Dubai, is the world’s most expensive perfume, and is a bargain at $1.29 million a bottle. Admittedly, it is 3 L. The bottle it comes in has 3,571 diamonds, totaling over 38 karats, topaz, pearls, 14 karat gold, and silver. DKNY’s Golden Delicious perfume is $1,000,000 an ounce. Take heart, the rest are much more affordable. Clive Christian Number One is a bargain at $12,722 an ounce.  Baccarat is a steal at $6,800 an ounce. Chanel Grand Extrait is only $4,200 an ounce.  Clive Christian number one is $2,150 an ounce.  I could go on, but you get the idea.  You’re not going to be smelling any of these fragrances on any of my vestments!

Expensive perfumes are not a modern phenomenon. People have been making expensive fragrances for thousands of years.  The ancient Egyptians, Chinese, Hindus, Israelites, Carthaginians, Arabs, Greeks, and Romans all incorporated perfume into their cultures.  Theophrastos, sometime during the third century BC, wrote about perfume in his work, On Odors. Pliny the Elder, who lived during the same time that Jesus walked the earth, wrote in his book, Natural History, that perfume is a “flower that grows everywhere,” and Dioskourides, who also lived during that time, wrote about perfumes in his book On Medical Material.  

Lots of different things were used to make perfumes, but two of the most common in earlier times were frankincense and myrrh, two of the gifts the wisemen brought to the baby Jesus.

Pliny the Elder wrote that the “price of unguent of cinnamon,” one kind of perfume in that day, “is quite enormous.”  He described perfumes as “objects of luxury” and “the most superfluous” compared to other materialistic goods like jewels due to their poor durability.  He noted that perfumes could exceed “four hundred denarii per pound,” which was a huge sum during that period.  One denarius was a laborer’s typical day’s wage.  So, you can see that a bottle of that perfume would cost more than many people made in an entire year.  

The time for Passover was drawing near.  Jesus knew that the chief priests and Pharisees were planning to have him put to death.  Nevertheless, he made his way towards Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.  On the way, he stopped in Bethany, where Lazarus, Mary, and Martha lived.  

At dinner, Mary took a pound of pure nard, an extremely costly ointment made from plants of the honeysuckle family grown in the Himalayas of Nepal, China, and India.  She anointed Jesus’s feet and wiped his feet with her hair.  The fragrance from the costly ointment filled the entire house.  Judas implicitly blamed Jesus for allowing it to happen, saying that the nard should have been sold for 300 denarii and the proceeds given to the poor.  St. John tells us that Judas simply wanted that money for himself, for he was a thief. 

Jesus then gives a mystical meaning for what Mary had done.  He knew that as he was going to Jerusalem, he was going to face his death for the sins of the world.  Mary was simply anointing him as a preparation for his death, even though she could not have known that she was doing it for that purpose.  “Let her alone,” he says. “Let her keep it for the day of my burial.”

The next day, Jesus would enter the holy city of Jerusalem, humble, and riding on an ass, to shouts of “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel!”

And so on this last Sunday before Palm Sunday, we recall Jesus’ anointing by Mary.  Just as he was heading toward Jerusalem, we are preparing to recall those events that brought about the salvation of the world.

When you were baptized or confirmed, you may have been anointed with a sweet-smelling oil known as the oil of chrism.  The sweet smell comes from hyssop, a plant in the mint family. This anointing signified anointing by the Holy Spirit.  

Let us all pray that the Holy Spirit will guide us during this holiest time of the year, that we may enter fully into those events whereby we have been given life eternal, that our faith may be renewed and strengthened, to the end that we may become more and more the sweet fragrance of Christ for God.

Of all of our Lord’s parables, the Parable of the Prodigal Father is my favorite. The story of a young man who asks his father for his inheritance, goes and lives in a far country, squandering his inheritance in reckless living, and then returning home, asking to be taken back as one of his father’s servants, is a poignant story that when reading it I am always moved. The Parable of the Prodigal Father is the Gospel in story form. Is this Parable of the Prodigal Father one of your favorites as well?

Have I made a mistake? Did I say Prodigal Father? Is it the Parable of the Prodigal Father or the Prodigal Son? You know, Jesus never gave it a title. As far as I can tell, the word prodigal never occurs in the story. The dictionary definition of prodigal is recklessly wasteful. Then obviously we should call it the Parable of the Prodigal Son. But there’s another definition of prodigal as extravagant, profuse in giving, exceedingly abundant. Doesn’t that describe the father? He was exceedingly extravagant in his love for his son. If we use that definition, shouldn’t this be called the Parable of the Prodigal Father? In the end, isn’t that the lesson we want most to learn from the parable, that while our sin is great, God’s forgiveness is even greater?

And then there’s the elder brother. He doesn’t appear until later in the story, but aren’t we supposed to gain some insight into our own lives from the elder brother? Isn’t he a prodigal, too? While he doesn’t squander his inheritance in reckless living, he does squander his inheritance by never really knowing how much he’s loved by his father, and in that doesn’t he also waste his father’s love? So maybe we might call it the Parable of the Prodigal Elder Brother.

It’s the Parable of the Prodigals. With whom do you identify in the parable? Are you running from responsibility? Are you wasting your inheritance as a child of God, turning your back on your loving heavenly Father, for whatever reason? Or have you been there, done that, and returned, accepting the love of your heavenly Father? 

Maybe you identify with the prodigal father. Of course, he stands for God. But he’s also a wonderful example of how we should treat others. Maybe it gets even closer to home than that. Perhaps you have a child who has run from your love and returned and you’ve welcomed him or her with open arms. Or perhaps the child hasn’t yet returned and you yearn for the opportunity to welcome your child back. So you identify with the prodigal father.

There’s part of us that really does identify with the elder brother. There’re a lot of good qualities in the elder brother. He’s responsible. He knows what’s expected of him and he does it. When the fields need to be planted, they’re planted. When the crops need to be harvested, they’re harvested. His father relies on him. He doesn’t have to go behind him and make sure he did a good job. He trusts him, because he knows he can trust him. Those things that are essential for the family business to prosper are done by this man. And he does it all without expecting commendation. Society needs elder brothers. We couldn’t function without them. If you want something done and done well, you don’t go to the prodigal son; you go to the elder brother.

And there’s something else that we like about the elder brother. He leads a morally upright life. He lives in the way his father taught him to live. The younger son does everything his father taught him not to do, but not the elder brother. We don’t have many morally upright people in our society today. There are all kinds of examples of reckless living, but the person who strives to live according to the way he was taught from childhood is rare. Society needs desperately the example of the elder brother. Good qualities worthy of emulation. There’s part of us that cries, “Go for it, elder brother, you’re right on the mark!”

But there’s a great sadness about him. He really is prodigal, for he doesn’t realize in his life that he truly has the “good life." He’s always been at home, in the presence of his father, but he’s lived without joy. He hasn’t known how wonderful he’s had it. There’s always been in the back of his mind that his brother had the really good life, doing what he wanted to do, no responsibilities. His anger was always just beneath the surface, and when his brother returned home and was accepted back freely, and a party no less was thrown for him, that anger came quickly to the surface. 

The elder brother all too often characterizes the attitude of religious people. We try to live a disciplined life, and sometimes we look at those who do exactly what they want to do whenever they want to do it and we secretly, perhaps subconsciously, think they’re the ones who really have the good life. It comes to the surface when someone who hasn’t lived a Christian life has a deathbed conversion, and you’ll hear a Christian say, “Well, he had the best of both worlds!” 

The elder brother also has a huge moral problem. He doesn’t recognize his relationship to his brother. “This son of yours,” is how he refers to him. And he sulks outside, not going into the party. He couldn’t rejoice that his brother had returned to the fold, that he had repented and changed his life. He saw himself as superior, not recognizing his own faults. That, brothers and sisters, is a big one for us Christians. How easy it is for us to pass judgment on others. We can see the splinter in someone else’s eye, but not notice the log in our own. Jesus never condones the sins of the flesh, but neither does he see them as the worst sins. Jesus is always much harder on the sins of the spirit, that sense of moral superiority so prevalent in the religious people of that time and of every age. But elder brothers, take hope. The loving Father stands ready to receive you back as well. Join the party!

It’s the Parable of the Prodigals. With whom do you identify? Perhaps you’re a mixture. Let’s seek the love of our heavenly Father and show forth that love in our lives.