Fifth Sunday in Lent (Fr. Robinson)

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.