This mighty vine is Bougainvillea, which can be tidily clipped and controlled as a bush, or allowed to trail off up to thirty feet.
Bougainvillea isn't growing in my garden here, but for the past few weeks I've detected its intense fragrance wafting onto the property and through the neighborhood. It's evidently growing on someone's property. But what a memory for me! Bougainvillea's perfume is the first sense-impression one has walking through the gate and into the domain at Lourdes in France, where the Virgin Mary appeared to young Bernadette 18 times in 1858.
Stream of consciousness! Bougainvillea might invite us to recall that other arresting fragrance — the chrism with which we were anointed after our Baptism. We all carry a fragrance — a Christ fragrance — to spread wherever we go. Our Chrism-scent is the fragrance of compassion, willingness and cooperation. It is the scent of joy in difficult times, confidence in God's presence and enduring hope. It is the good odor of consolation, transformation, and the gift of being able to feel with others.
That last one — feeling with others — might be in short supply these days. One politician said recently that our national goodness is at stake these days: gun mayhem and threats of violence over masks during a pandemic. Someone might object and say, "Oh no, look at all these health professionals doing heroic work for others during the pandemic." True, but where there is great light, there can also be great shadow.
