“Mary brought in a pound of very costly ointment, pure nard, and with it anointed the feet of Jesus, wiping them with her hair.” (Jn 12:3)
What a tender gesture on Mary’s part this Gospel passage tells us! It is a tenderness that corresponds to the being of a woman, and which reflects something of her beauty and her capacity for self-giving. Mary has given her whole heart to Jesus, and what a consolation that loving soul must have been for Him in the midst of so much hostility. Something similar will happen to Him on the Way of the Cross, when Veronica wipes His face.