Day 41: Anoint with Love and Liberation
As we enter this Holy Week, today’s readings give us a glimpse of the liberation brought by the Suffering Servant and the overflowing, fragrant anointment of love God intends for Christ Jesus and us.
And yet, I wonder if we perceive our need for liberation? For those of us who live within the prison of white innocence, privilege, power, and forgetfulness of our complicity in the enduring history of slavery, 
lynching, and racial violence—do we recognize how Isaiah addresses us?
Do we recognize ourselves in Judas in today’s Gospel? We are complicit in vast webs of plunder that daily steal from, disrupt, and destroy black and brown bodies through predatory lending practices, the school to prison pipeline, a criminally unjust justice system, food deserts, and inaccessible, sometimes non-existent health care.
Now is the time to recognize our shared vulnerability and our shared need for liberation and loving mercy. Now Jesus calls us to heal the wounds of racial violence by lavishly anointing our black and brown brothers and sisters with the oil of loving mercy.
Reflection Questions
- Do we recognize our shared need for liberation from white supremacy and domination?
- Do we, like Mary, lavishly anoint the black and brown Christ in our midst with the fragrant oils of love and justice?
Alex Mikulich is a Catholic social ethicist and racial equity consultant. He is co-author of The Scandal of White Complicity in U.S. Hyper-Incarceration: A Nonviolent Spirituality of White Resistance (Palgrave 2013 and 2015). He co-edited and contributed to Interrupting White Privilege: Catholic Theologians Break the Silence (Orbis 2007) which won the Theological Book of the Year from the College Theology Society.
Hi Alex,
Do you have any suggestions for a book for a faith sharing group to study this idea of racial incarceration? I read “The New Jim Crow” and really enjoyed it.