261. Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time (C)

Meditations no. 580 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

The wonder of a God who forgives.

OUR Lord has accepted the invitation to eat at the house of a Pharisee named Simon. When she heard that Jesus was there, a local woman, a known sinner, entered the room carrying an alabaster jar with perfume, and behind her she stood at his feet weeping; and she began to bathe his feet with her tears, and wiped them with her hair, kissed them and anointed them with the perfume. Saint Luke recounts the episode in detail, which will culminate in a surprising statement by Jesus to the woman: your sins are forgiven. Many diners are scandalized by such words and comment among themselves: Who is this that even forgives sins?

A short time ago, upon hearing a similar statement addressed by the Lord to a paralytic, the scribes and Pharisees had reacted in the same way: Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone? On that occasion, Jesus confirmed his authority by healing the sick. And those present at the scene dispersed glorifying God, while commenting with a start: today we have seen wonderful things. It is possible that they were referring to the miracle, although it seems rather that the real reason for astonishment was the sentence by which sins were forgiven. The whole of humanity, burdened by its sins since our first parents, must have breathed a deep sigh of relief. Surely Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses or David would be surprised to notice the naturalness with which we accept the words: “I absolve you”. To be redeemed from the only cause of true slavery, to be freed from the chains of the devil: it is logical that the crowds shouted enthusiastically.

Jesus’ listeners had reason to be stupefied, for only God can forgive the offenses we inflict on him. Truly, “such a word is proper to God; it is an expression of supreme authority … In this way they learned that the Word was not just another prophet, but that he was above the human; although he became man, he was also God.” But it is no less wonderful that he actually forgives us.

Our Father taught us to be amazed at the greatness of God the Creator, Almighty, who brought all things out of nothing. We are even more overwhelmed before God the Redeemer, who comes to save humanity with so much love that he allows himself to be nailed to the Cross, suffering as much as he can, and he can do everything he wants, and he loves us very much: Jesus Christ semetipsum exinanivit, formam servi accipiens (Phil 2:7); he is annihilated by taking our flesh in the virginal womb of Mary, ever the Virgin! More than being nailed to the wood of the Cross, he is nailed by the love he has for us and by the desire to save us.

And finally, we look at the God who forgives … And then there is madness: a God who forgives, who forgives more than all mothers and all fathers together forgive their children. I fall in love with him, I love him. I am moved! A God who forgives is father and mother a hundred times, a thousand times, infinite times.

The words, go in peace, with which Jesus bids farewell to the forgiven sinner, are very consoling. What peace it must give us to know that the Lord always forgives us, that he loves us so much, that he knows so much about human weaknesses, that he knows what vile clay we are made of!

We must encourage refinement of conscience.

God knows well the clay of which we are made. Those who often do not notice it are ourselves. In the first reading of the Mass, it is narrated how Nathan was sent by God to David, unaware of the atrocities he had committed. Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I have anointed you king of Israel; I have delivered you out of the hand of Saul; I have given you the house of your master (…). Why have you despised the Lord, doing what is most pleasing to him? You have killed Uriah the Hitite with the sword; you have taken his wife as your wife and killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. It is only after listening to the prophet that David realizes the evil he has done and repents of his guilt: I have sinned against the Lord. And, full of contrition, he composes that psalm which is a marvellous model of sorrow and compunction: have mercy on me, my God, according to your goodness; According to your great compassion blot out my trespass. Wash me completely from my guilt, and purify me from my sin. For I acknowledge my trespass, and my sin is continually before me. Against thee, against thee only, I have sinned, and I have done that which is evil in thy sight.

Blindness to one’s own sins can be due to various causes. For example, “when man does not concern himself with seeking truth and goodness and his conscience is progressively darkened by the habit of sin.” On other occasions, it is a progressive insensitivity that invades people who are satisfied with themselves because they fulfill their gross obligations, without committing serious infractions that, if they were to occur, they might not notice either, since they do not really struggle to approach God positively with small victories and sacrifices.

Something of this must have happened to the host of Jesus. He was probably pleased with himself. When he invited him to his table, perhaps he thought, he had shown a deference to the Rabbi of Nazareth; although his appreciation began to wane, when the Master accepted the homage of the unexpected penitent: if he were a prophet, he would know with certainty who and what kind of woman it is that he is in. He, Simon, does not escape the fact that she was a sinner. But his lucidity regarding the grave faults of others is not enough for him to discover his own faults. This even leads him to condemn the miracles of Jesus.

“To heal the sick,” says St. Ephrem, “is the glory of the physician … The Lord has performed miraculous signs in the streets, but he has performed even greater signs when he entered the house of the Pharisee … In the streets he has restored health to sick bodies, but inside he has healed sick souls. Outside he has restored life to the death of Lazarus; within, he has given life to the death of the sinner … That blind Pharisee, for whom miracles were not enough, has discredited the common things he saw because of the wonderful things he could not see.”

Jesus, who until now had remained silent, cannot help but point out his lack of courtesy, in contrast to the attention lavished on him by that woman: I entered your house and you did not give me water for my feet. But she bathed my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not kiss me. But since she came in, she has not stopped kissing my feet. You have not anointed my head with oil. But she has anointed my feet with perfume.

Without scruples, which are a disease of conscience, we must ask the Lord for sensitivity to appreciate our infidelities. If we are not humble, profoundly humble, it is easy to become distorted in our conscience. Perhaps in our lives, out of weakness, we can do wrong. But clear ideas, a clear conscience: what we cannot do is do bad things and say that they are holy.

Pain of love.

IN the face of our miseries, the Lord does not want us to despair, nor to be angry with ourselves. If this were to happen, we should ask ourselves the question that our Father asks: is your sorrow, after the fall, after your lack of generosity, pain or tantrum to see you so small and without strength? God does not seek empty acts of gift, nor presumptuous exercises of penance. What he always expects is love; and, when we have offended him, our pain of Love.

If Jesus was hurt by Simon’s carelessness, it was because they denoted a lack of love. He highlights this with his piety and clemency towards the sinner, even though she had more obvious miseries than those of the Pharisee. However great the offense may have been, the measure of love is the measure of forgiveness: he who is least forgiven loves the least. And, looking at it from the opposite angle, the woman is forgiven for her many sins, because she has loved much, with a contrite heart.

Our Father pointed out to us: what power contrition has in the eyes of God! Alphonsus the Wise, in one of his songs, speaks of a sinner-like us, who are also sinners-who received as a penance to fill a glass of water. That poor little thing ran to a river, and the glass was not filled; and to a fountain, and the glass was not filled. Now another fountain, and to another river; and to a lake, and to the sea! And the glass was not filled. … Nothing on earth, nothing could fill that little vessel.

Then she thought of her evil life and of the Lord, of her misery and of her God; and tears ran down her cheeks and fell into the glass, which was filled to overflowing. She had done her penance! Although her initial contrition may have been imperfect, it was not contemptible: through it she came to the true pain of love.

The conversion of the prodigal son also followed a path. First he began by noticing how far he had fallen and how pitiful his situation was: he wanted to be satisfied with the carob beans that the pigs ate, and no one would give it to him. Thinking about it, he said to himself: “How many of my father’s day laborers have abundant bread while I am starving here!” His repentance, at first, had a lot of self-pity. He did not think about the pain of his father, who had been waiting for him in vain for so long; he only wanted to be admitted among those well-fed day laborers. But, even with selfish views, the father image was somehow present in the depths of his soul and, along the way, it took shape. When, finally, the father threw himself around his neck to cover him with kisses, love made the son forget the hired servants and their stuff, to say simply: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

That is what our Father God expects of us, if we ever find ourselves in similar circumstances: words of love, even if at first glance they may seem insincere. The protests of affection on the part of Simon Peter, after having denied Jesus, when the Lord asked him three times if he loved him, could also have seemed superficial. That is why the Apostle appealed to divine Wisdom, which knows the nooks and crannies of the heart: Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you. And Jesus accepted this contrition as perfect.

Perhaps on some occasion we do not even dare to formulate such a humble protest of love. Even then we have recourse to Mary. The Virgin is Mother; and as Mother she understands and understands our weaknesses, she encourages, excuses, facilitates the way, she always has the remedy ready, even when it seems that nothing is possible anymore.