She has done what she could: she has come beforehand to anoint my body for burying.
Read Chapter 14
Bede
AD 735
As though Judas was asking an innocent question, our Lord simply and gently explained the mystery of what Mary’s action meant, namely that he himself was about to die, and that he was to be anointed for his burial with the spices…. This is to say clearly, “She will not be able to touch my body once I am dead; she has done what she was able to do; she has anticipated, while I am still alive, the performance of the duty of burying me.”
Moreover, there have not been wanting those who esteemed burial as superfluous, and said that it was no evil to lie unburied and neglected; but their impious wisdom is rejected alike by the whole human race, and by the divine expressions which command the performance of the rite.
