New Life of action and thanksgiving

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today present the kerygma of the New Life that is the fruit of Jesus resurrection and how this Love is the initiation of our freedom from attachments that steal our fullness of life.

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In the First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul separates the The Gospel Teaching from Greek concepts of the body and the soul.

* [15:1–58] Some consider this chapter an earlier Pauline composition inserted into the present letter. The problem that Paul treats is clear to a degree: some of the Corinthians are denying the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor 15:12), apparently because of their inability to imagine how any kind of bodily existence could be possible after death (1 Cor 15:35). It is plausibly supposed that their attitude stems from Greek anthropology, which looks with contempt upon matter and would be content with the survival of the soul, and perhaps also from an overrealized eschatology of gnostic coloration, such as that reflected in 2 Tm 2:18, which considers the resurrection a purely spiritual experience already achieved in baptism and in the forgiveness of sins. Paul, on the other hand, will affirm both the essential corporeity of the resurrection and its futurity. His response moves through three steps: a recall of the basic kerygma about Jesus’ resurrection (1 Cor 15:1–11), an assertion of the logical inconsistencies involved in denial of the resurrection (1 Cor 15:12–34), and an attempt to perceive theologically what the properties of the resurrected body must be (1 Cor 15:35–58).

In the Gospel from Luke, Jesus is anointed by a woman who expresses her thanksgiving for forgiveness through visible acts of love.

* [7:36–50] In this story of the pardoning of the sinful woman Luke presents two different reactions to the ministry of Jesus. A Pharisee, suspecting Jesus to be a prophet, invites Jesus to a festive banquet in his house, but the Pharisee’s self-righteousness leads to little forgiveness by God and consequently little love shown toward Jesus. The sinful woman, on the other hand, manifests a faith in God (Lk 7:50) that has led her to seek forgiveness for her sins, and because so much was forgiven, she now overwhelms Jesus with her display of love; cf. the similar contrast in attitudes in Lk 18:9–14. The whole episode is a powerful lesson on the relation between forgiveness and love

The musing of a Franciscan friar include comments that Jesus says that the woman has already been forgiven her sins.

that is evident because of her love. She would not be able to show such love unless she had first accepted love (forgiveness, acceptance). The forgiveness has set her free to love. When Jesus says “Your sins are forgiven,” he is confirming what is already true in her; in the different context of the healing of the paralyzed man, Jesus forgave the sins at the moment of declaration (5:20). It is not that her love has earned forgiveness. By faith she accepted Jesus’ (God’s) loving forgiveness that saved her (see 1:77) and is now able to love

John Shea, S.J. echoes the comments of the Franciscan friar.

We don’t know what sins the woman committed that prompted her to wash the feet of Jesus. We do know that Jesus compares her sins to a large debt. He notes that her “many sins” have been forgiven. But she was not forgiven because of her act of love. She experienced God’s forgiveness first and then responded with gratitude by bathing, kissing and anointed the feet of Jesus. Although her sins were “many” the Gospel passage does not emphasize them. Instead, Jesus lists her many acts of love.

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)

The Word Among Us Meditation on 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 notes that our story may not be exactly as dramatic as St. Paul’s, but in many ways it is no different. We too have received God’s grace, and this grace has not been ineffective: we have believed and decided to follow Jesus. So how do we respond to this constant flow of God’s grace? In his classic book The Cost of Discipleship, German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer talked about the difference between “cheap grace” and “costly grace.”

We can “cheapen” our experience of grace by failing to respond to its flow in our lives. Every day we face numerous situations in which we can call on God’s grace or try to move on without it. For example, you may be tempted to nurture resentment or bitterness over something someone said or did. You can ask God for the grace to forgive. You may want to lose patience with one of your children who is acting out of line. You can stop for a moment, and call on God’s grace so that you can deal with the issue calmly.

Friar Jude Winkler explains the difficulty of Greek spirituality with the ideas of resurrection. Pharisees who consider sin is a contagion are upset. Jesus presents a different way that is an expression of love about the debt forgiven the woman, Friar Jude comments.

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, concludes that on the practical (read “transformational”) level, the Gospel message of Jesus and the Twelve-Step message of Bill Wilson are largely the same. Addiction can be a metaphor for what the biblical tradition called sin. It is quite helpful to see sin, like addiction, as a destructive disease instead of something for which we’re culpable or punishable and that “makes God unhappy.” If sin indeed makes God “unhappy,” it is because God loves us, desires nothing more than our happiness, and wills the healing of our disease.

Pope Francis clearly understands sin in this way. Shortly after he proclaimed the Holy Year of Mercy in 2015, he was asked why humanity is so in need of mercy. He replied that in part it’s due to “considering our illness, our sins, to be incurable, things that cannot be healed or forgiven. We lack the actual concrete experience of mercy. The fragility of our era is this, too: we don’t believe that there is a chance for redemption; for a hand to raise you up; for an embrace to save you, forgive you, pick you up, flood you with infinite, patient, indulgent love; to put you back on your feet. We need mercy.” [1] ([1] Pope Francis, The Name of God Is Mercy: A Conversation with Andrea Tornielli (Random House: 2016), 16.)

Fr. Richard is convinced that when the great medieval spiritual teachers talked so much about attachment, they were really talking about addiction. We are all attached and addicted in some way. At the very least, we are addicted to our compulsive dualistic patterns of thinking, to our preferred self-image, and to the usually unworkable programs for happiness we developed in childhood—which then showed themselves to be inadequate or even wrong.

References

(n.d.). 1 Cor 15:26. Retrieved September 20, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/1corinthians/1corinthians15.htm
(n.d.). Luke 7:36. Retrieved September 20, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/luke/7:36
(2013, June 15). A Prophet a Pharisee and a Loving Woman | friarmusings. Retrieved September 20, 2018, from https://friarmusings.com/2013/06/15/a-prophet-a-pharisee-and-a-loving-woman/
(n.d.). Creighton U Daily Reflections .... Retrieved September 20, 2018, from http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/daily.html
(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved September 20, 2018, from https://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/
(n.d.). Meditations - The Word Among Us. Retrieved September 20, 2018, from https://wau.org/meditations/
(n.d.). Daily Meditations Archives - Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved September 20, 2018, from https://cac.org/category/daily-meditations/