Holy Monday in the Holy Land, celebrated in Bethany, has for centuries been one of the most heartfelt moments of Holy Week.

 

Here, six days before Easter, the Christian liturgy relives the gesture with which Mary of Bethany poured precious nard oil on the feet of Jesus, drying them with her hair, filling the whole house with the fragrance of the sacred ointment. (cf. Jn 12,1,3)

 

This episode, of gratuitous, silent and profound love, is at the center of the celebration of Holy Monday, which anticipates and prepares the liturgy of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of the Lord.

 

In Bethany, at the church of Saint Lazarus, the friars of the Custody of the Holy Land also celebrated this year the rite of the blessing of the perfumed oils that will then be used in the Eucharistic procession of Good Friday and in the parishes of Jerusalem.

 

These oils recall, beyond the gesture performed by Mary to the living Christ, the anointing of his body for burial by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, and the morning of Easter, when the women bring oils and spices to the empty tomb.

 

The liturgical celebration of 2026 took place in a context marked by restrictions on public life and gatherings of the faithful due to the ongoing war.

 

Ecclesiastical and religious authorities had to suspend or limit many of the traditional processions and community gatherings, offering celebrations in a more intimate form and also transmitted through the media to reach the faithful unable to participate.

 

This situation made it even more evident how the liturgy is not a simple rite, but a profound experience of faith and hope that overcomes difficulties.

 

In the poverty of attendance, in the sobriety of the assemblies and in the prayers offered for peace, the Christian community of Bethany sought to embody the meaning of Holy Monday, fragrance of life and gratuitousness.

 

In his first celebration in Bethany as Custos of the Holy Land Fr. Francesco Ielpo expressed his emotion at praying in the place of the house of Jesus’ friends, the house where the Master felt welcomed and protected.

 

The Custos took inspiration precisely from Mary’s evangelical gesture to reflect on the deep value of gratuitous love, in a time when injustice and conflict can fill hearts with fear and resentment.

 

The fragrance of nard is not a simple aroma, but a sign of life that conquers death and of love that spreads silently.

 

In his homily, the Custos emphasized the idea that true love does not measure, does not calculate, true love, when it is authentic, always appears somewhat "wasted", like the love of a mother for her child, a love that does not count hours, sacrifice, or cost.

 

At the same time, the Custos explained, there is the logic of calculation expressed by Judas who is scandalized by the waste of such a precious perfume.

 

In his meditation, the Custos invited the faithful present to reflect on the possibility offered to us at the beginning of Holy Week: "living Easter like Mary, allowing ourselves to be involved, giving time, attention, prayer, without calculating too much, or living it like Judas, remaining spectators, measuring everything, letting the mystery slip over us".

 

The blessing of the oils and the liturgy of Holy Monday in Bethany thus become not only a remembrance of a Gospel episode, but an invitation to embody today, in a world wounded by violence, the gratuitousness of deep love, the gift of self and the hope that is born from the resurrection.

 

At the end of the Eucharistic celebration, the priests, religious and faithful present received in their hands, from the Custos, the perfumed oil, just as Jesus received it from Mary.

 

They were thus able to make present and real what they had heard during the proclamation of the Gospel: "and the whole house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume".