I'm no theologian, but I am a Catholic who was fortunate enough to have had at least some of the pre-Vat-II teaching instead of the Protestant worldly "teaching" that tries to eliminate God and Heaven from Jesus.

My non-theologian interpretation of the story in which Jesus was being criticized for being annointed with expensive perfume is that Jesus was saying that He - God - was where we should be focused.

Jesus wasn't out drumming up money to make the world a better place; he was saying to let God take care of things, and even showed us by performing miracles and spending his ministry as a wanderer.  This isn't new, radical thinking on my part: ancient churches are filled with depictions of heavenly Jesuses.   

Personally, I think that once we start focusing on God, the secular stuff takes care of itself:  rather than being forced to good deeds by worldly humanists and government redistribution, we perform good deeds because of our embracing of God.