Discover mercy through Reconciliation

June 17, 2007 -- 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time

By Fr. Michael Stubbs

	Fr. Mike Stubbs

In his autobiography written around 400 A.D., St. Augustine of Hippo discloses his reaction when he attended the liturgy before his conversion to Christianity:

"How I wept, deeply moved by your hymns, songs, and the voices that echoed through your Church! What emotion I experienced in them! Those sounds flowed into my ears, distilling the truth in my heart. A feeling of devotion surged within me, and tears streamed down my face-tears that did me good." (The Confessions of St. Augustine, 9,6,14)

Tears often indicate deep emotion (or a reaction to peeling onions), but the specific emotion can vary. For example, when Luke 22:62 tells us, "He went out and began to weep bitterly," we are witnessing Peter's deep sorrow over his denial of Jesus. Peter has just heard the cock crow, and he suddenly remembers what Jesus had told him: "Before the cock crows today, you will deny me three times."

We might suppose that once again the tears of the anonymous woman who weeps so profusely in Sunday's gospel reading, Luke 7: 36-8:3, reflect her sorrow for her sins. After all, the gospel identifies her as a notorious sinner. "Now there was a sinful woman in the city who learned that he [Jesus] was at table in the house of the Pharisee." In the midst of her encounter with Jesus, he tells her, "Your sins are forgiven." We might easily conclude that this proclamation of forgiveness responds to her sorrow for her sins, shown by her tears.

On the other hand, there is reason to believe that the woman's tears are tears of joy, not sorrow. She weeps out of gratitude for having been forgiven. She lavishes her attention upon Jesus to communicate her love for him. It is through Jesus that she has discovered God's mercy.

This interpretation correlates better with the parable that Jesus tells Simon the Pharisee about the two debtors whose debts are forgiven. The one who has been forgiven the most will love the most. In the same way, the woman, who has been forgiven more than the Pharisee, will likewise love Jesus more. She has demonstrated that love by her copious tears, which have washed the feet of Jesus.

Then what are we to make of Jesus' declaration to the woman, "Your sins are forgiven."? Why did Jesus need to say those words, if the woman had already found forgiveness?

Jesus' pronouncement of forgiveness confirms what the woman had already discovered, most likely through Jesus' preaching. Jesus' words recognize what had already happened. Another possible translation would read "Your sins have been forgiven." The verb is in the present perfect tense. It indicates a past action, whose effects continue into the present.

We also believe that our sins have been forgiven, through Jesus' death and the cross, through God's great mercy. Baptism has opened up the door for us to discover that mercy. We can experience that mercy in many ways, above all through the sacrament of Reconciliation. That thought may not always reduce us to tears. But it should cause us to reflect, and be grateful. And it should deepen our love for Christ, just as it did for the woman in the gospel.

(Fr. Stubbs, a priest of the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas, has a master's degree in theology from Harvard.)