As St. Ignatius says, love is better expressed in deeds than in words. This saying applies as well to our love for the Lord: to love Him is not merely to say it out loud, but to show it in our actions. But how do we show our love for the Lord? In the Gospel today, Christ’s friend Mary expresses her love for him by pouring her valuable oil on his feet.
We must always be mindful to keep our love for the Lord before us, as Mary does. If we forget our love for Him, then all other love withers away eventually. We see this in Judas: he wants the oil to go the poor rather than to Jesus. While this is an act of charity on the surface, it is one devoid of love for the Lord; in the end, all Judas’s love withers away, he betrays Jesus, and the money he gets goes to no one. He neglects his love for the Lord, and so he neglects his love for everyone around him.
For this reason, we can’t forget our personal love for the Lord, the love that nourishes all other love in our hearts. Today, let us pray for the grace to be like Mary, and to express our love for the Lord in all that we do, recognizing that He has loved us first.