{"id":3803,"date":"2025-04-14T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/?p=3803"},"modified":"2025-04-13T18:03:07","modified_gmt":"2025-04-13T18:03:07","slug":"the-anointed-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/2025\/04\/14\/the-anointed-one\/uncategorized\/3803\/","title":{"rendered":"The anointed one."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Image by Gundula Vogel from pixabay.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The 41st word in my Lent lexicon is: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

ANOINTED. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a word that has deep roots in our faith history and in our liturgical practices. At baptism we are all anointed with chrism to share in Christ\u2019s role as \u201cpriest, prophet and king.\u201d We are anointed again at our death. Throughout the Scripture anointing marks someone as having a special role from God.

Today\u2019s gospel opens a new perspective on anointing. In frightening and uncertain times the disciples gather at Martha\u2019s house It offers them an oasis of hospitality and safety in the increasingly dangerous times.

In times of great danger questions and doubts that we thought we\u2019d put to rest often resurface so it is easy to understand Judas\u2019 distrust and questioning. I imagine he wasn\u2019t the only one feeling that way.

In the midst of the tension Mary\u2019s action provides a fresh focus. Her action doesn\u2019t deny or banish the fear or the danger, instead it points to a deeper reality:

\u201cMary brought in a pound of very costly ointment, pure nard, and with it and anointed the feet of Jesus, wiping them with her hair; the house was full of the scent of the ointment.\u201d<\/em>

Her anointing once again marks Jesus as the chosen one of God. Jesus tells his disciples that she has anointed him for his burial, acknowledging that he is facing death, and preparing his disciples for that. As the scent of her ointment fills the house her simple action is a sign that love is stronger even than death. As she anoints Jesus she reminds us that our Holy Week journey ultimately leads us through death to the new life of resurrection.

As we move through Holy Week how does the anointing of your baptism sustain you?
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 41st word in my Lent lexicon is: ANOINTED. It\u2019s a word that has deep roots in our faith history and in our liturgical practices. At baptism we are all anointed with chrism to share in Christ\u2019s role as \u201cpriest, prophet and king.\u201d We are anointed again at our death. Throughout the Scripture anointing marks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[324,222,494,239,345,271,336,246,1],"tags":[634,112,28,18,376,6,101,8,33,229,13,41,29,15,794,633,10],"class_list":["post-3803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baptism","category-benedictine-spirituality","category-christ","category-gospel","category-holy-week","category-lectio-divina","category-lent","category-scripture","category-uncategorized","tag-anointing","tag-baptism","tag-benedictine","tag-challenge","tag-disciples","tag-gospel","tag-holyweek","tag-hope","tag-kingdom","tag-kingdomvalues","tag-lectiodivina","tag-lent","tag-love","tag-newlife","tag-priestprophetking","tag-scent","tag-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3803"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3809,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3803\/revisions\/3809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}