On this 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time this gospel calls us to make a decision about what is primary—or our Prime Motivator—in the face-off between Love and forgiveness. We hear in Luke’s Gospel the account of the sinful woman who at dinner washes Jesus’ feet. This scandalizes the others at table. How can one so sinful serve the Lord?

Scripture scholars have debated over this gospel and the quandary it presents: Love or forgiveness. In the gospel, Jesus tells a parable about two men indebted to a creditor and asks which one of the debtors will love the forgiving creditor more for his act of forgiveness; one debtor owes 500 days wages and is forgiven, the other owes 50 days wages and both are forgiven. Simon responds with the idea that the one whose debt is larger is the one who will love the creditor more. Makes sense, right? Jesus then turns to the sinful women and says to Simon that while he did not welcome Him with a kiss or anoint His head with oil or wash His feet—this woman has done all these things and more because of her great love for the Lord. It is out of this love in our hearts that Christ then forgives her sins and welcomes her to him. So, what came first: forgiveness or love?

In this gospel, as well as in many other places in Sacred Scripture, the Lord reminds us that Love is the source, the summit and font of our Christian discipleship. Love is the foundation of compassion and compassion is the antidote to so much negativity, hatred or indifference in the world around us. This teaching—this absolute Truth—is the beginning of our spiritual journey in faith. Sometime ago in a homily I noted that when we are trying to discern a message from God in our lives we can be certain that only that which is good, righteous or holy is from God/Christ/the Holy Spirit; goodness comes from God.

Pope Francis recently noted that love is the starting point of everything in the Christian faith. In fact, in his instruction to priest confessors, the Holy Father noted that when hearing someone’s Confession the priest needs to consider the person’s presence in the confessional—realizing that few enter the Sacrament without contrition—for we know that nobody likes to come in and admit their failures. I have always made the assumption as a priest that those who enter and seek forgiveness do so out of love for God and with a hope to be reunited with Him; to grow in His grace and to become closer to Him. Therefore, they are sorry for the sin(s) they have committed.
Sometimes you might need to draw those words out of them but few enter the confessional with a cavalier or arrogant attitude of indifference. As I have said in many a homily: God sees sinning very differently from the way we humans might. Rather than seeing us as weaklings or
sinners who need to be “put in our place” or given the old “I told you so,” our merciful Father sees our sinning as one more opportunity to love us, to forgive us, and to draw us back to Him. This is because He is the source, the summit and the font of Love, and in His love for us He desires only the excellence for us (e.g., eternal life with Him).

Today’s sinful woman enters the Pharisee’s house with a great love for the Lord and she wants to express that love in very practical ways because of her great faith in Him. Our Church invites us into that great faith in our God and to demonstrate our love for Him in practical ways—by loving those around us. Let us listen once again to the words of Eucharistic Prayer II: “Therefore, as we celebrate the memorial of his Death and Resurrection, we offer you, Lord, the Bread of life and the Chalice of salvation, giving thanks that you have held us worthy to be in your presence and minister to you.” The Lord calls us to show our love for Him in the way we treat and respect and care for others. Imbedded in that idea of treating righteously and respecting and caring for others is the idea that what we too are hoping for the most excellent thing for them—eternal life with our Father.

Pope Francis also reminds us that as a Church we are called to invite people to Christ and we do this by offering, metaphorically speaking, not a clenched fist but an open hand. We become a welcoming Church not by opening the doors and saying, come in if you’d like to but
rather by opening the doors and then going outside to bring people in. This does not mean that we abandon the Truths of our faith and let them continue to live without real faith or that we throw out the baby with the bath water vis-à-vis our beliefs, but that we explain our beliefs in words that are understood rather than in Ecclesial language, and that we acknowledge the world in which we live and so find a way to inform and form that world with the absolute Truths and love of God.

Rather than worrying about what comes first—Forgiveness or Love—we should focus on the bigger and broader picture by recognizing people’s gestures of faith and acknowledging them and welcome them home.

This is especially true in the Sacrament of Reconciliation in which too many people do not participate, some out of a fear of being ridiculed or berated. Rather, that encounter should be like the one experienced by the sinful woman who was forgiven/loved by the Lord. Our priestly role is that of In Persona Christi – in the person of Christ—for it is Christ who is doing the forgiving,
sacramentally speaking.