The sinful woman at the banquet given by Simon

Continuing with Fouard's Life of Christ:

IV: The sinful woman at the banquet given by Simon

Luke vii. 36-50.

On that same day at Naïm the divine gift of grace were again bestowed upon mankind.  While still excited by the raising of the dead youth and by the coming of John's messengers, this little city was to be the scene of one of the most touching incidents in the whole Gospel.

A Pharisee, named Simon,1 invited the Saviour to a banquet.  Curiosity, and the pleasure of entertaining an extraordinary personage, — perhaps, too, a secret sense of the majestic character of this Prophet, — left had induced him to tender this courtesy to Jesus.  However, from pride, or from fear of his Sect, he affected an air of contemptuous coldness.  The usual polite ceremonials were omitted: there was no one to bathe the feet of the Stranger, nor did anyone kiss this Guest upon the cheek, nor offer Him perfumes four His hair.

Jesus made no complaint at meeting with so cold a greeting in the house of one who had bidden Him to a formal feast.  He entered the banquet hall and took His place at table.  In the primitive times the Hebrews used to partake of their repast, after the manner common among the Orientals of today, seated upon mats with their legs crossed; but ever since the Captivity, they had dropped this custom in order to follow the prevalent fashion among the Greeks and Romans, slipping off their sandals at the threshold, they reclined upon couches, which were arranged about the board, and helped themselves to the dainties, while leaning on the left arm, the body lying with the feet extended to the outer circle.

When the great banquet hall was thrown open to all comers, as was now the case, it was customary for a crowd of onlookers to surround the feasters with perfect freedom.  In this interested circle of spectators there stood a woman known throughout the whole town for her disorderly life.  Upon hearing a rumour that the Christ was coming to this quarter of the city, she had hurried thither, clad in her usual rich garments, and clasping a vase of perfumes in her hand.  She had pressed forward until she reached the Lord, and there she remained listening to Him in silence.

Mary dries the feet of Jesus. J-J Tissot.

Very soon, indeed, the words of the Son of Mary found their way to her sin-stained soul; she threw herself weeping at the feet of the Master, humbly kissing them, drying them with her hair, and then, breaking the alabaster vase, she covered them with the fragrant incense.

Simon looked across the table with haughty disgust at this woman who had prostrated herself before Jesus.  Neither the woeful shame nor the great wretchedness of a heart torn by repentance could move him to pity; he could see in this sinful woman nothing but a disgraced and odious creature, whose least touch would leave an ugly stain.  His only surprise was that Jesus did not repulse her, as he or any other Pharisee would have done, in scorn and horror.

"If this man were really a Prophet," he mused, "he would know what sort of a woman this is who is touching him; he would know that she is a sinner." These words were not uttered aloud; but the Pharisee, if only by his silence and his contemptuous manner, let his disdain be plainly seen by all.

Jesus answered his thoughts.

"Simon," he said, "I have somewhat to say to you."

"Well, Master, say on!" replied the host.

"A creditor had two debtors; one owed him 500 denarii and the other fifty.  As they had not wherewithal to pay him, he remitted each one's debt.  Which of the two now loves him most?"

Simon replied, without seeing what the Lords desired to prove from this, " Undoubtedly it would be he to whom he remitted the greater amount."

"You judged rightly," answered Jesus; and then He turned His eyes fall upon the sinner before Him.  Huddled at His feet, she was shedding bitter, burning tears, tears which Saint Augustine has called the heart's blood.  But because she was humble, and was therefore more enlightened than Simon, at the very mention of debt she knew that He was alluding to Her.  The Master pointed to this penitent figure, continuing still had to address the astonished Pharisee.

" Simon, do you see this woman?
"I entered your dwelling; you gave Me no water for My feet, while she indeed has washed My feet with her tears, and has wiped them with her hair.
"You gave Me no kiss; while she indeed, ever since I entered here, has not ceased to kiss My feet.
"You have not anointed My head with oil, where she indeed has bathed My feet with ointments.
"And so, for this reason, I say to you, many sins shall be remitted unto her, because she has loved much.  But he to whom less is remitted loves the less."

The Heart of the divine Master overflowed in this forgiveness which he now granted to one who was looked upon as the vilest object in all humanity, the very symbol of lost and depraved womankind.  Not like Paganism, which would have devoted her to a life of shame beyond the slightest hope of escape, Jesus cast upon her the look of such deep and pure tenderness that the Pharisees themselves dared not wrong Him by evil thought.  He raised her from the earth, and though He did not lay upon her brow that flower of innocence which once blighted never looms again, He crowned her with a glory far more austere, — the halo of repentance, and a great lover of a pardoned soul.

And this divine fire blazed so brightly and so strong within this poor sinner’s heart that it was purified at once of every ugly stain; "so much of sinfulness was forgiven her, because she had loved so much." And therefore Jesus had only to make manifest the miracle which grace had worked within her by saying to the sobbing woman, —
"Your sins are remitted unto you."

Language like this, which had once were roused the members of the Sanhedrin to a fury of indignation, here, among the Pharisees of Naïm, only excited mingled emotions of fear and awe.
"Who is this man," they said among themselves, "who even remits sins?"

But as for Jesus, all intent upon comforting the penitent, His a new thought was to complete her conversion by making her know His infinite compassion, and so reviving her courage.

"Your faith has saved you," He said; and then He added, "Go in peace!"

Forthwith, in the peace of the Lord, the pardoned sinner went away, never again to seek happiness in carnal pleasures, destined rather to amaze the world by the unflinching rigour of her expiation.

This woman, whose name Saint Luke does not mention, is no other than Mary Magdalen.  Although there is nothing in Scripture distinctly to settle this fact,2 there are very venerable traditions of the Church which assert it; and Jewish writers add their testimony in confirmation.  According to all these authorities the pardoned sinner of Naïm, Mary of Magdala, and Mary the sister of Lazarus and Martha, are one and the same person.

Of her sinful past we have no knowledge beyond a few legends in the Talmud, which speak of the beauty of Mary, the fame of her lovely hair, her wealth, and her intrigues.  Her husband was a Doctor of the Law, Pappus, son of Juda, whose jealousy was so great that he was wont to keep her closely imprisoned whenever he left their home.  The highly spirited Jewess soon broke away from this hateful restraint, joined fortunes with a gay officer of Mandela, and accompanied him to that town, where she led a life of such brilliant but unbridled indulgence that she has always kept the name of "The Magdalene."

And doubtless it was there that Jesus saw her, and so awakened in her stained and blighted heart the first seeds of a passionate regret for a lost soul.  The few words at the banquet hall in Naïm were all that was needed to bring her weeping to the Saviour’s feet; and ever after that day the Fathers, whose opinion we are following now, delight in discovering tokens of her presence, and she follows the footsteps of the Master.  She is among the Galilean ladies who went with Him and waited upon their Lord.  At Bethany she is seated at His feet, in deep, speechless contemplation; then too, close by the tomb of Lazarus, and afterwards at the feast given by Simon the leper, everywhere whither she could tread in the pathway of Him Who had saved her.

These are the broad lines in the Magdalen's portrait, as she is depicted by Tradition, which has thus filled out the shadowy sketch left us by the Gospel.  Modern critics remark very truly that there is nothing in the sacred text to necessitate such a reconstruction of the events; but surely they make a twofold mistake when they disregard Tradition, which supplies facts omitted by Scripture, while without any sufficient proofs of their own, they contend that these three women were of different dispositions, whose like could never be combined in one person.  Such writers feel sure that the noble ladies of Galilee, among whom Saint Luke mentions the Magdalen, would never have associated with an infamous character; and that Mary, the Contemplative of Bethany, has nothing allied to that impetuous ardour which Saint John attributes to the Magdalen upon Mount Calvary.  These difficulties will not be stumbling blocks to those who know what changes repentance can work in the soul.  Conversion does, in truth, bestow a title of nobility which no companions of Jesus ever fail to recognise; it turns the thirst for pleasures into such passionate longing for heavenly delight that the most illustrious penitents have buried themselves in a life of contemplation.  And therefore we feel no more surprise at finding the brilliant courtesan sitting silent and subdued at the Master's feet, then when we see her still clinging to her dying Lord, or disputing with the tomb for the body of the Incarnate God.  And so we are still constant to ancient beliefs, when we prefer to think of the three Marys of the Gospel as the one Magdalen, ever venerated throughout the church.

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam