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Gospel Commentary – September 18, 2025
We have heard many times the story Luke tells us about the sinful woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and anointed them with very expensive perfume. Most likely we already picture the whole scene with all its details, and we might even wonder how something so unusual could have happened: that a woman with such a reputation managed to enter the house of Simon the Pharisee and approach Jesus… and the host remained silent and still. According to Luke, he thought to himself that Jesus couldn’t really be a prophet. But Jesus read his thoughts and told him the parable of the moneylender with two debtors, one owing five hundred denarii and the other fifty. Both debts were forgiven, and then Jesus asked Simon which one would love the lender more. The answer was obvious: the one who had been forgiven the greater debt.
Jesus went on to compare in detail the difference between the welcome He had received from Simon and that from the sinful woman. Cold and neglectful in one case, overflowing with love in the other. Did the Pharisee understand it? Do we?
What does it mean that the sinful woman “loved much”? Maybe that outpouring of love was a deep longing for the Good, a desire to return to true love. We can call it sorrow for sin, repentance, a thirst to be healed. No doubt the woman knew that Jesus Christ—both man and God—saw what was in her heart. Maybe she had heard some of His preaching—stories like the Prodigal Son or the Good Samaritan, the very ones that appear in Luke’s Gospel.
The poet Dante gave Saint Luke this title: “the one who describes the kindness of Christ.” Many scholars call Luke’s Gospel “the Gospel of mercy,” a story that presents Jesus as someone very close to sinners, the sick, the poor, and the needy. His writing shows Jesus as the Son of God who came to save what was lost. Saint Luke wants us to see that God’s love has no limits and never rejects anyone who truly wants to repent and change their life.
It would be good if, when we go to confess our sins, we could do so after first having loved deeply the mercy of the Lord, who never stops loving us.