11th.
Sunday, Year C
(2 Samuel
12: 7-10, 13; Galatians 2: 16, 19-21; Luke 7: 36-50.)
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, our second reading from St. Paul
and our Gospel reading from St. Luke today are surprisingly inter-related and
most intimately instructive in that relationship; to loosen the binding knot
and taste the hidden fruit, let us begin by considering some difficult words
from St. Paul in our second reading:
We know that a person is not justified by works of the
Law but through faith in Jesus Christ; through the Law I died to the Law that I
might live for God.
What does Paul mean when he says, through
the Law I died to the Law? How did
he through the Law die to the Law?
Much has been written over many years by scholars of varying persuasions
and abilities, and so I cannot pretend to offer a solution to the many
difficulties they find in those words; but for all that, I will offer a
suggestion that is both relative to the passage and, I trust, helpful for our
understanding and appreciation of our Gospel today.
St. Paul was a great lover and proponent of the Law as
understood by the Pharisees before he encountered the Risen Lord Jesus in a
vision on his way to Damascus to persecute the Church of God out of zeal for
the traditions of his ancestors in Judaism (cf. Galatians 1: 13s.). Paul never lost his love for the Law, but
after that encounter with the risen Lord Jesus he came to understand it much
better as God’s means of preparing His People for the gift of salvation He intended
to offer them in and through His very own Son and their Redeemer, God-made-Man in
Jesus born of Mary of Nazareth, and Israel’s long promised and ardently
expected Messiah:
If it had not been for the Law, I would not have known
sin. We know that the Law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh ... I do the very
thing I hate. ... I delight in the Law of God in my inmost self, with my mind I
am a slave to the Law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.
Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue
me from this body of death? Thanks be
to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
We asked how did Paul through the
Law die to the Law? It is clear now
that Paul’s knowledge of the Law taught him what was required of him as a convinced
Israelite, but Paul’s deep
self-awareness and great insight into our human condition also made it most
abundantly clear to him that he himself -- despite his most ardent endeavours
-- could not keep the Law in all its fullness and integrity, nor could any of
his fellow Pharisees:
All who rely on the works of the Law are under a
curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all
the things written in the book of the Law.’ (Galatians 3:10)
All, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin,
as it is written, there is no one who is righteous, not even one; there is no
one who has understanding, there is no one who seeks God. All have turned aside, together they have
become worthless; all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
(Romans 7: 7, 14- 15, 22, 24-25; and Romans 3: 9-12,
23.)
Why then the Law? That was the question that forced itself upon
his religious mind, and this was the answer he learnt from his experience of and
love for the Risen Jesus:
It was added
because of transgressions, until the Offspring (Jesus) would come to whom the
promise had been made. The Law was our disciplinarian until Christ came so that
we might be justified by faith. (Galatians 3:19,
24)
As we now turn our minds to the Gospel reading we will see that Simon,
the Pharisee, had but a limited measure of Paul’s self-knowledge or commitment
to the Law: for example, the proprieties expected when receiving guests had
been either ignored or forgotten by Simon when welcoming Jesus; and how easily
his solicitude for the reputation of his house caused him to start criticising,
in his heart, the young Rabbi whom he had admiringly and respectfully invited
to share his table:
If this man were a prophet, he would know who and what
sort of woman this is who is touching him!
Of course, it was extremely embarrassing for Simon reclining at table
with Jesus, as indeed it must have been for the others sharing his hospitality,
when a woman, publicly known for her sins, entered his house – not only uninvited
but also most certainly unwelcome – and, standing behind Jesus weeping
profusely, began to:
Bathe His feet with her tears, wipe them with her
hair, kiss them, and anoint them with ointment.
Nevertheless, how quickly his professed reverence for the one he called ‘Teacher’
evaporated in the face of this threat to his own public standing and self-esteem: If this
man were a prophet!! Jesus,
however, loved Simon and came to his help, forestalling him before he could
actually say anything at all:
He said to him in
reply, ‘Simon, I have something to say to you ....’
Simon, as we have said, had little in common with Paul his guest, but
the sinful woman resembled Paul so very much in her profound appreciation of,
and total self-abandonment to, Jesus. Paul
gave himself to Jesus -- in response to a personal vision and ‘mystical’
encounter with Him as the Risen Lord -- most humbly, lovingly, and
unreservedly, on the basis of his profound understanding and appreciation of God’s
revelation in the Scriptures entrusted to Israel’s custody for fulfilment: how penetratingly
he recognized his need of the redeeming grace of Jesus, his Lord and Saviour! The woman, most certainly, had encountered
and heard Jesus previously, perhaps only once, but possibly a few times,
because she came to Him as one loathing herself for love of His Goodness and
Truth.
Paul learned his self-distrust from the Scriptures and from his vision
of the Risen Lord; the woman embraced her self-loathing, it would seem, simply
from encountering and learning from the man, Jesus of Nazareth, as He walked
and talked in the course of His public ministry. In her respect we can fruitfully recall some teaching
of St. Thomas Aquinas who used to say that an unlettered peasant could know God
better than he himself, know Him intuitively, that is, by the heart; because
knowledge of God does not end in, is not fulfilled in, concepts but reality. A theologian weighed down with concepts,
though they be correct, can remain far from the Reality, while an ‘ignorant’
person can reach that Reality better, thanks to the transparency of more humble
concepts.
Does not the Psalmist express himself in very similar words?
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did
my mother conceive me. Behold, You
delight in truth in the inward being, and You teach me wisdom in the secret
heart. (Psalm 51:5-6)
The woman loved the Lord and suffered deeply from the open scorn and
contempt she received when she tried to draw near to Him; and Paul’s very
vocation as a Christian was to suffer more than any other apostle for his love
of the Lord:
The Lord said to Ananias, ‘Go, for he is an instrument
whom I have chosen to bring My name before Gentiles and kings and before the
People of Israel; I Myself will show him how much he must suffer for
the sake of My name. (Acts 9:
15s.)
For both of them Faith was the crown of their relationship with Jesus,
as St. Paul said:
Insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in
the Son of God, Who has loved me and given Himself up for me.
Jesus turned to the woman and said to Simon, ‘I tell
you, her many sins have been forgiven because she has shown great love; the one
to whom little is forgiven loves little.
He said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you, go in peace.’
There are religious groups today, however, who gain followers or recruit
supporters by offering them not peace but someone, something, to hate and/or
violently oppose: offering the exaltation and satisfaction of humanly
disordered emotions as the fulfilment of a pseudo-religious involvement and as the
earthly foretaste of a promised and equally pseudo heavenly reward. Society around us also proclaims earthly
emotional experience and satisfaction – never openly hateful indeed, but not
without deep-rooted intolerance -- as the only worthwhile and publicly acceptable
ideal and reward: love – however disgusting -- is all, and homophobia is the
supreme sin!! Love, that is, which is
to be felt and enjoyed as supremely pleasurable, not to be evaluated and most
certainly not to be constrained, by any other considerations other than the
human, earthly pleasure and satisfaction it affords the individuals concerned.
Catholicism, Christianity, on the other hand, offers -- supremely and
solely -- the Truth of Jesus which, when whole-heartedly embraced, evokes a
response of unique Love that can only be truly expressed through, and fulfilled
in, unequivocal faith and commitment.
Jesus once used most solemn words that bring out in total clarity the deepest
and most extensive problem and need in the Church today: lack of Faith in the
face of the emotional attractions of extremism and the self-approval and
self-satisfaction of comfortable worldly conformity:
When the Son of Man comes, will
He find faith on earth?
Dear Brothers and Sisters, we should treasure and try to develop our
personal Faith in Jesus and commitment to His Church with heartfelt gratitude
and serious endeavour, and pray devoutly for the growth of Faith in Mother
Church and for God’s special blessing on all called to proclaim and propagate
that Faith throughout the world. Towards
that end let us cast a final glance at King David in our first reading today,
for he makes clear to us another most beautiful characteristic of faith:
Nathan said to David: ‘Thus says the Lord God of
Israel: “Why have you spurned the Lord and done evil in His sight? ... Now
therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house because you have
despised Me and taken the wife of Uriah to be your wife.”’ David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against
the Lord.’
There we can see the beauty of David’s faith! He had an ‘intuitive’ relationship with God
like that of the sinful woman with regard to Jesus in our Gospel reading; he
was weak at times indeed, but he did not seek to justify his behaviour before
God’s judgement: I have sinned against the Lord! The extremists of today would say to any such
words of judgement against them or their actions, ‘We were forced to, we had no
choice but to, behave, respond, as we did’; whilst the world of human
righteousness and political conformity would most probably not even be able to understand
any such words against their works or policies: ‘This world’s love guided us in
all that we did or sought to do.’ Before
God and the truth David was totally simple, with no complications of pride, seeking no
refuge in self-justification. His
example is also most worthy of our admiration and imitation along with that of
Saint Paul and of the ‘sinful woman’.
