Thursday in the 24th Week of Ordinaey Time, September 19, 2024

Luke 7, 36-50

A certain Pharisee invited Jesus to dine with him, and he entered the Pharisee’s house and reclined at table. Now there was a sinful woman in the city who learned that he was at table in the house of the Pharisee. Bringing an alabaster flask of ointment, she stood behind him at his feet weeping and began to bathe his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and anointed them with the ointment. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, that she is a sinner.” Jesus said to him in reply, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Tell me, teacher,” he said. “Two people were in debt to a certain creditor; one owed five hundred days’ wages and the other owed fifty. Since they were unable to repay the debt, he forgave it for both. Which of them will love him more?” Simon said in reply, “The one, I suppose, whose larger debt was forgiven.” He said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? When I entered your house, you did not give me water for my feet, but she has bathed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but she has not ceased kissing my feet since the time I entered. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she anointed my feet with ointment. So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” The others at table said to themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” But he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

The Lord Jesus inspired passionate feelings among those who encountered him.  The Apostles were gripped by the conviction that this was the Messiah, and they endured a relentless, hard life with him father giving up their livelihoods to follow him.  The Pharisees and the Sanhedrin hated him almost at sight and schemed to silence and kill him.  Great crowds followed him into deserted places in order to hear him speak.  And then there were women who so attached themselves to him that nothing that happened to him could shake them off.  Notably, his Blessed Mother, her step-sister or cousin, also named Mary, and Mary Magdalene, who persevered at the Cross.  Besides there there were Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus, living in Bethany, who were devoted to him.

In the Gospel Reading for today’s Mass, we read of a woman without a name and of whose connection with Jesus we are not told, but who showed a rock-solid understanding of who he was, resulting in her immense love of him.

“Now there was a sinful woman in the city who learned that he was at table in the house of the Pharisee.”  The usual understanding is that this woman was a prostitute, but St. Luke only describes her as “a sinful woman” — an amartōlōs — not a pórnā, the Greek word for “prostitute”.  By describing her only as “a sinner”, Luke presents her as not much different from anyone else, for “all have sinned and do lack the glory of God” (Romans 3, 23), as his comrade St. Paul taught.  Whatever the nature and the degree of her sins, she did not let them prevent her from going straight to Jesus in the place where she had heard he was, and without regard for the company of the town’s upper crust, she “stood behind him at his feet weeping and began to bathe his feet with her tears.”  Now, the Lord was reclining on a couch to eat, as per the custom of the time.  He lay on his side with his head near the banquet table so that he could reach his food with one of his arms.  The others in the party would have been arranged around the table, reclining in the same way.  The woman stood outside this grouping at the Lord’s feet.  The Lord would have been elevated between two and three feet above the ground.  The height of the woman could not have much exceeded five feet.  Her long, dark hair, unbound, would have hung at his feet.  She wept.  The Greek word means something stronger: Luke quotes Jesus using it while speaking to the women of Jerusalem as he carries his Cross to Golgotha: “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not over me; but weep for yourselves and for your children” (Luke 23, 28).  An alternate meaning of the word is “to mourn”, so we can understand the daughters of Jerusalem mourning over the execution of Jesus, and the unnamed woman here as mourning for her sins. And for all the lost opportunities to do some good act.

“Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and anointed them with the ointment.”  She need not have knelt or crouched down to do this, but it would have made what she did easier.  The alabaster jar would have had a bright, translucent white quality to it and, because it was easy to work, it would have been sculpted with delicate shapes and figures.  The Evangelist does not give us an idea of the quantity of the ointment the jar contained, but both the alabaster and the ointment do indicate a certain level of worth.  The ointment would normally be used as perfume for the body or as an air freshener in the home.  It was decidedly not meant for the feet.  What we see is a seemingly heedless outpouring of emotion.

And what the woman does overthrows all conventions.  First, a woman had no place in a proper dining room of that time and place.  Second, no one should have interrupted the meal as she did.  Third, she, “a sinner”, made Jesus ritually unclean by touching him.  And yet, her actions made reset the situation and made it truly proper, for, as Jesus points out, he had been denied the basic courtesies afforded a guest: his feet were not washed, he received no kiss of greeting, nor was his head anointed with oil.  This treatment amounted practically to signs of contempt.  The woman makes it all right.  She restores the order to the dinner that had been withheld.  And the Lord, in turn, restores her to a state of righteousness by forgiving her sins.

We can only imagine the ferocity of this woman’s repentance and of her love of Jesus Christ.  She knew who he was and she knew that he alone could forgive her.  She must have heard him teaching the crowds.  Perhaps he caught her eye as he spoke, and in that instant of connection she knew.

True repentance means upending our lives and throwing aside whatever gets in our way, renouncing the past and cutting ourselves off from it in order to go straight to the Lord of heaven and earth and beg humbly for mercy.  Whatever the future might hold, it will be with him, and that will be enough for us.