Almighty God, grant that in the midst of our failures and weaknesses we may be restored through the passion and intercession of Your only-begotten Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Lessons: Isaiah 50: 5–10 Psalm 36:5–10 Hebrews 9:11–15 St. Matthew 26:1–27:66 or St. John 12:1–23
The glory that comes from the Old Adam always praises the glory of man. As a pastor wrote after “the Oscars’ ceremony: Idolaters worshiping their idols as their idols receive an idol. This is as old as Babel. And all man’s Babylons strive but to impart/The grandeurs of his Babylonian heart. (Francis Thompson). Those idols are cold and dead, but not Mary, who in the midst of her failures and weaknesses was restored and made alive by the Lord’s love and forgiveness of her. She responded to His love as best she could, taking care of the Lord’s Body. He takes care of us, so let us take care of His Body, the Church, each other and the neighbor who needs to hear, as Mary, of Christ’s overwhelming mercy.
“She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. 9 And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.” (St. Mark 14)
O Lord Jesus Christ, You who were anointed with the fullness of the Holy Spirit, give me grace so that I may sprinkle Your feet with penitent tears and may thus be enabled to anoint the members of Your spiritual body—especially the needy and suffering ones—with the oil of compassion and gentle kindness. Amen. (prayer by Pr. Johann Gerhard)
Concordia and Koinonia 
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