The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite us to contemplate the connection between loving action and forgiveness.
Love and forgiveness
The reading from the First Letter to Timothy offers Counsel to Timothy to ‘give attention to the public reading of scripture, to exhorting, to teaching’.
* [4:14] Prophetic word: this may mean the utterance of a Christian prophet designating the candidate or a prayer of blessing accompanying the rite. Imposition of hands: this gesture was used in the Old Testament to signify the transmission of authority from Moses to Joshua (Nm 27:18–23; Dt 34:9). The early Christian community used it as a symbol of installation into an office: the Seven (Acts 6:6) and Paul and Barnabas (Acts 13:3). Of the presbyterate: this would mean that each member of the college of presbyters imposed hands and appears to contradict 2 Tm 1:6, in which Paul says that he imposed hands on Timothy. This latter text, however, does not exclude participation by others in the rite. Some prefer to translate “for the presbyterate,” and thus understand it to designate the office into which Timothy was installed rather than the agents who installed him.1
Psalm 111 is praise for God’s wonderful works.
* [Psalm 111] A Temple singer (Ps 111:1) tells how God is revealed in Israel’s history (Ps 111:2–10). The deeds reveal God’s very self, powerful, merciful, faithful. The poem is an acrostic, each verse beginning with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet.2
In the Gospel of Luke, a sinful woman is forgiven.
* [7:47] Her many sins have been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love: literally, “her many sins have been forgiven, seeing that she has loved much.” That the woman’s sins have been forgiven is attested by the great love she shows toward Jesus. Her love is the consequence of her forgiveness. This is also the meaning demanded by the parable in Lk 7:41–43.3
George Butterfield advises us to attend to ourselves as St. Paul says. Part of doing that is to grow as a human being and begin to see people as Jesus sees them. That is as important as what we proclaim as teachers.
When I attended law school many years ago there was a clear distinction between the professors and students, on the one hand, and the workers who took care of the shrubs and trees or worked in the kitchen on the other hand. The latter were largely invisible. People didn’t really see them. We were largely white folks and they were mostly Hispanics. It’s not that “we” looked at them like Simon did and thought of “them” as sinners. No, it was probably worse than that. We didn’t see them as sinners. Actually, we didn’t see them at all. When you begin to hang out with Jesus, things change. You start to see people and to see them for who they really are.4
Don Schwager quotes “Jesus the Physician brings miraculous healing to the woman's sins,” by Ephrem the Syrian (306-373 AD).
"Healing the sick is a physician's glory. Our Lord did this to increase the disgrace of the Pharisee, who discredited the glory of our Physician. He worked signs in the streets, worked even greater signs once he entered the Pharisee's house than those that he had worked outside. In the streets, he healed sick bodies, but inside, he healed sick souls. Outside, he had given life to the death of Lazarus. Inside, he gave life to the death of the sinful woman. He restored the living soul to a dead body that it had left, and he drove off the deadly sin from a sinful woman in whom it dwelt. That blind Pharisee, for whom wonders were not enough, discredited the common things he saw because of the wondrous things he failed to see." (excerpt from HOMILY ON OUR LORD 42.2)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Luke 7:36-50 comments that Simon the Pharisee, a teacher of the Law of Moses, became the student of a woman with a tarnished reputation. When she anointed Jesus’ feet, she taught Simon—and us—about worshipping God in gratitude and humility. She taught that salvation and healing are possible for even the most sinful or the ones who are scorned by the “righteous.” She taught that the power of Jesus’ forgiveness is stronger than the shame of sin. And she taught that those who encounter Jesus’ mercy can be transformed by it.
Jesus can teach all of us in surprising ways. In fact, every day he offers us numerous grace-filled opportunities to learn from him through our relationships and our circumstances. So look out for those moments when he asks you, “Do you see this woman? This child? This opportunity?” Remember, Christ can speak through anyone. Even the ones you least expect. “Jesus, help me to be open to learning from you in new and unexpected ways today.”6
Friar Jude Winkler comments that the author in 1 Timothy is writing to a young man in a society that honours the wisdom of the elders. The Holy Spirit is the power to be trusted working through the teacher. Friar Jude reminds us of the act of trust in the faith of the woman forgiven by Jesus.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, comments that there are few people who teach as passionately about love as scientist, scholar, and Franciscan Sister Ilia Delio. Ilia’s enthusiasm for, and trust in, the “love energy of God,” makes any of our typical notions of hell quite impossible.
What Francis of Assisi recognized is that God is in every direction. That you might arrive, you might not arrive. You might arrive late; you might arrive early. It’s not the arrival that counts. It’s God! It’s not the direction that counts. It’s just being there, trusting that you will be going where God wants you. In other words, God is with us. Every step of the way is God-empowered love energy. But we tend to break down and start controlling things: “If I go this way, I’m going to get lost. Well, what if it’s wrong? What will happen to me?” Well, what will happen to you? Something will happen. But guess what? Something’s going to happen whether or not you go; that’s the whole point of life. So, it’s all about love.7
The separation that results from sin is treated through our openness to trust in Love to bring forgiveness.
References
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