May 10
A meal of repentance
sinful woman
has proclaimed to us that God's love has gone forth in search of sinners.
For when he called her, Christ was inviting our whole race to love; and
in her person he was drawing all sinners to his forgiveness. He spoke to
her alone, but he was drawing all creation to his grace. No one else persuaded
him to help her come to forgiveness; only his love for the one he himself
had formed persuaded him to do this, and his own grace besought him on
behalf of the work of his hands.
Who would not be struck by the mercy of Christ, who accepted an invitation
to a Pharisee's house in order to save a sinner! For the sake of the woman
who hungered for forgiveness, he himself felt hunger for the table of Simon
the Pharisee; and all the while, under the guise of a meal of bread, he
had prepared for the sinner a meal of repentance!
From John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., Tradition Day by Day: Readings from
Church Writers. Augustinian Press. Villanova, PA, 1994.
HTML text prepared by David P. Steelman
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