The Church Pours Ointment
Many have met the Lord Jesus representatives of the catholic church, for He is the bridegroom. But this woman seems to me she has surpassed them all, after the Mother of God Saint Mary who has carried the Lord in the womb. She is the symbol of the church, and His Kingdom has been carried inside her, the mystery of the church’s life and its joy.”
The Church that has not yet been seen met with her Groom, through the Samaritan Woman (John 4) who married to five men, and lived with one who was not her husband. The Man of Truth came to take her to the real well of water to quench her thirst, and she overflowed the entire world with the mystery of her satisfaction.
In the midst of human crowds, the church of the new covenant secretly encountered the Teal Physician and after touching His clothes, her flow of blood stopped (Matt. 9). The church blemishes are wiped away through the power that was released to its inner depths. The Church developed, that was previously had fallen under the verdict of death, as a prostitute caught in the very act (John 7: 53-8:11) It has then taken by force His forgiving mercies.
The Church has been freed as a poor widow who enters the Lord’s house, not knowing what to offer except two cents, which was all she had; this was an acceptable offering of love. The Church, moreover, has met the mother of Zebedee’s sons, offering her sons to the Groom so they be blessed with His eternal kingdom through their partnership with Him in His cup, and getting dyed with His own dye. In the personality of Martha, the Church came forth serving her Groom (Luke 10) in the person of His single …., as an offering of sublime excessive love.
In the house of Simon the Pharisee, the sinful woman came barging in the assembly (Luke 7) and she stood at the Lord’s feet, weeping, and she wet his feet with the tears, and wiped them with her hair. She kissed His feet and rubbed them with fragrant oil (Luke 7:38).
She represented the mystery of the Church membership. It is the entrance to the Lord Jesus to encounter Him without being hindered by the Pharisee life of Simon’s. The soul stands in humility weeping in tears of repentance at the Savior’s feet. She bends with her head, that is, with the thoughts and hair, her physical beauty, wiping the Lord’s feet. She is declaring her repentance, mingled with joy, for she is kissing His feet and pouring the fragrant oil in them. This declares the beautiful fragrant of Christ in her life.
As for this woman who met the Lord in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, she came to declare the most perfect encounter of the two brides, the Church and the Bridegroom. This was in heavenly splendor, poring out all her life, a fragrant oil of great price, filling up heaven and earth with the beautiful fragrance of love. This meeting makes us enter into overwhelming mysteries, before which I stand in amazement that I am unable to express. It carries the mystery of eternal life, which no human language could record as it is.
– Commentary on Matthew, p. 26
