Great Love

Homily for Thursday of the 24th Week in Ordinary Time

After reading today’s Gospel text, I came away with one thought; namely, somebody loves me! Of course, for me the somebody is God. God’s love for us has been spoken of throughout the Hebrew and Christian scriptures and described as unending, unselfish, undeserved, unimaginable, undying, and unmerited.

Spiritual writers have waxed eloquently on the meaning of the woman’s gesture in today’s Gospel text. We see, in her actions, so odious to the Pharisees, that the proper response, and the response most pleasing to God when we experience God’s forgiveness, is love.

All of us carry with us a memory of when we have failed in love. However, the woman teaches us that we also carry the knowledge of God’s forgiveness. She is unable to contain her gratitude and allows nothing to deter her from approaching Jesus, not even the Pharisees’ disdain. She sheds tears of sorrow for her sins and uses them to bathe her Master’s sacred feet and to wipe them with her hair.

In this woman, some of the Church fathers, the earliest commentators on the Scriptures, have seen a figure or symbol of the church as well as a model for each of us. Aware that she is the beneficiary of God’s mercy, the church responds with extravagant gestures of love for God: our prayers, our works of charity, our sacrifices, and especially our celebration of the Eucharist. Our task, therefore, is to train our hearts to be like the woman who loved much. We do this by being extravagant with God in our prayers, our good works, and our confidence in God’s mercy. We should, likewise, strive to engage our hearts and our minds with devotion in this and every subsequent celebration of the Eucharist. Then, no matter our past sins, Jesus will be able to say of us what he said of the woman in the Gospel: you have shown great love.