In
the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Jesus is no stranger to sinners. He is surrounded by them, and He
knows it. In fact, He knows every sin of everyone He meets, before a
person even opens his mouth. Jesus eats with sinners, touches
sinners, worships with sinners, lives with sinners, and dies with
sinners.
In today's Gospel lesson, Jesus eats with sinners. Not just the
woman, whom tradition identifies as a prostitute, but also the
Pharisee who thinks he lives a more holy life than Jesus. Sinners are
all around, and Jesus deals with each sort in turn. The same
treatment will not apply to both the woman and Simon the Pharisee.
The woman, whom the Church has traditionally identified as Mary
Magdalene, is a sinner of the worst kind, at least in the eyes of her
community. She lives in open, manifest sin. Prostitution is not
something one does secretly, after all. One must attract business to
ply the trade. She is a woman of ill-repute, some of which is
probably deserved. She probably bears the marks of her trade –
well-coiffed hair, gilded and painted face, plentiful jewelry. When
she walks through town, she is a marked woman, known for what she is
and scorned because of it. She might as well be wearing a scarlet
letter, for as much ability as she has to live privately.
