“Merciful Father, as you have sent the Holy Spirit on Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, to write all that You wished and wanted, we pray You, send the same Holy Spirit on us, so that we may understand, appreciate Your Word, and make it our plan of life. This we ask for the merits of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.”
29 …. Going back to the Old Testament we find ample examples of the use of oil used as a healing substance or for consecration purposes. Israel, the Holy Land always produced a great amount of olives and subsequently, olive oil, because the land abounded in olive trees wherever you go. To this very day wherever hotel you will be staying you will always be served with olives, green or black of a large size, for breakfast, for lunch and for dinner.
They normally used neat olive oil, but sometimes oil was mixed with spices. Do you recall when Jesus was invited by Simon the Pharisee, and Jesus remarked about the lack of hospitality, because Simon failed to anoint Jesus with oil, as was the custom (Luke 7:46). This remark is a proof of the popularity of this custom in those days. Yes, we do find the same example in the well-known Psalm 22 /23: “The Lord is my Shepherd”, in verse 5 we find these words: “You anoint my head with oil.”
As we all know the anointing with oil is used for the installation of the chosen Prophet, for the consecration of a Priest and for proclamation of a King. Oil is still used nowadays, the Chrism during Confirmation, it is used during the Consecration of Priests, during Baptism and for the last Rites. Oil is believed to have had healing properties.
Going back to the Old Testament we find that God promised the Chosen People that if they were faithful to His Commandments, He promises to provide for them abundance of children and of crop. God promised to bless and give them abundance of rain, wine and oil. Refer to Deuteronomy chapter11, verse 14: “He will give to your land the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your corn, and your wine and your oil.”
With oil they used to light the lamps for the Temple and for their homes, as we find in Exodus, 27,20. So oil is also a symbol of light. We find that merchants used to deal in oil when buying, selling or in paying, in barrels of oil. Hiram used to send fine cedar wood to Solomon and Israel in then used to pay back by sending olive oil (1Kings 5, 25).
When Jesus narrated the Parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’ He did tell us that the Samaritan applied wine and oil on the injuries of the poor man and then bandaged his wounds.
But the most important fact about oil is the relation it has with the Messiah. In fact the Hebrew word for Messiah is ‘Maxiah’, and the Greek word is ‘Christos’, Christ. Now these two words, “Maxiah’ and ‘Christos’ both mean ‘Anointed’. This was confirmed by Jesus Himself when he was at the Synagogue in Nazareth, after reading from Isaiah, He said: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me for he has consecrated me.” (Luke4,18).
Then after closing the book He said: “This writing has been accomplished today whilst you were listening’ (Luke 4, 21) The three missions that of a Priest, a Prophet and a King, were thus confirmed in the person of Jesus Christ.
One last note about oil is worth mentioning. The fact that Noah after the deluge, sent out a dove, which, after a time it came back with an olive twig in its beak. Symbolical message; now the earth is dry again, there is peace. This is the reason why an olive twig has become almost universally accepted as a symbol of peace. /30
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