John 12.1-11 – Monday of Holy Week
The friends’ house accompanies the Holy Monday liturgy. It is as if the liturgy wanted to suggest to us that Jesus, in order to experience the pinnacle of his mission, his passion, death and resurrection, wanted, above all, to surround himself with friends. For this reason he enters the house of Martha, Mary and Lazarus. And there he lets himself be loved. It’s a profound lesson.
Even to save the world you need friends. Even to accomplish something great you need to be loved. Jesus, the Son of God, does not live his mission in self-sufficient solitude, but within a concrete relationship, within an affection received and welcomed. Pride, on the other hand, consists precisely in rejecting this dynamic: in not wanting anyone close to us, in not letting anyone love us. Sometimes this closure arises from real wounds, from disappointments suffered, from relationships that have hurt. Yet there is no other way to go through the “holy week” of our lives if not by recovering the value of friendship.
Mary makes a gesture that may seem excessive: she anoints Jesus’ feet with a precious perfume. But Jesus defends that gesture and says: «Let her do it, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial». It’s an act of love which prepares, without fully knowing it, the most dramatic moment. And he adds: “Indeed you always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” It is not a devaluation of the poor, but a call to recognize the unique value of that moment, of that relationship, of that concrete love.
Perhaps the Gospel today invites us precisely to do this: to rediscover the humility of letting ourselves be loved. Not to always defend ourselves, not to close ourselves off, not to think we can do everything alone. Because even God, by becoming man, chose to need others. And within this truth lies a concrete path for our life: welcoming friendship as a gift, and learning to live it as a place where God continues to make himself present.
