Since in the previous sermon we ran through the first part of today's reading, and we alike marveled with what fervor, with what faith, with what daring, with what novelty of service the sinful woman had touched the very footsteps of the Savior, now let us hear what the Pharisee said in silence, and what Christ, to whom silent things speak, answered. Seeing this, it says, the Pharisee who had invited Him said within himself: If this man were a prophet, he would surely know who and what kind of woman she is who touches him (Luke 7). Pharisee, what you observe is not ignorance, but power; it belongs to divine judgment, not to human error. Pharisee, you err: He could rather have failed to know if He had been a mere prophet, because prophecy is not of human will but of a divine gift:
wherefore a prophet knows, not as much as he wills, but as much as He grants who bestows the prophecy. If this man were a prophet, he would surely know who and what kind of woman she is who touches him. The touch of an evil woman burns one of evil conscience, pollutes one like herself, marks the suspect, defames the man of evil will: but otherwise a sinner becomes good, becomes holy, becomes innocent, when she touches the Giver of pardon as He comes. Filth touches the sun, but does not defile it. When wounds touch the Physician, their rottenness does not pollute Him. Though the guilty man touch the Judge, he cannot stain Him when he supplicates. So when a sinner touches the Lord, he does not soil the Lord; but he himself is both freed from all sin and suddenly seizes holiness. The woman set in a flow of blood proves this, who, when she
touched the hem of the Lord, did not pollute the hem, but she herself was soon freed from the defilement of her long-standing affliction. If this man were a prophet, he would surely know who and what kind of woman she is who touches him. The Pharisee would believe Christ to be a prophet if he saw things set before his eyes and known to the peoples. What, do you think, will he be ready to believe, when presently he learns that Christ is the arbiter of his mind, the judge of his heart, the witness of his conscience, the knower of his thoughts? Do you think that even then he will confess Him to be God, whom now, after such great powers, he judges not even a teacher? If this man were a prophet, he would surely know who and what kind of woman she is who touches him. The woman had a wound, she knew it, and therefore she sought out in this way the physician of so great a wound;
The Pharisee, wounded by the disease of unbelief, feverish with the flame of pride, was growing old and demented through his frenzy. Hence it is that Christ turned his care first to that place where an unnoticed sickness was raging, so that the heavenly Physician might cure two patients with a single remedy. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said within himself, speaking thus. Because the Pharisee had reasoned within himself, Christ answered him with a public voice; and while he laid open the secret of the Pharisee's heart, he shows that he himself was the author of all prophecy. 'Jesus answering,' it says, 'said: Simon, I have something to say to you.' To you, who have need of medicine and yet know not how to seek the medicine; to you, who call God your Master and yet abandon God's teaching:
do you not know that he does a great injury to his master who professes himself the disciple of one whose teaching he does not follow? For as the disciple's uprightness is the praise of the master, so a disciple ignorant of the discipline is the reproach of the master. 'Simon, I have something to say to you.' He answered, 'Master, say on.' Again, 'Master, say on'—and not 'God, say on.' Already now he perceives to be God the one he calls Master. 'Two men,' he says, 'were debtors to a certain moneylender: one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they had nothing to repay, he forgave them both; which of them therefore loves him more?' Simon answering said, 'I suppose that he to whom he forgave more.' And the Lord: 'You have judged rightly.'
You have heard how the heavenly creditor compensates the whole debt with love, and toward the increase of the whole loan he exacts and requires the interest of love alone. He deserves punishment as a debtor who by love alone neglects to redeem his own bond. Do you wish to know, O man, what you owe to God? That you were made is a loan from God; that you are capable of reason is God's interest; that you possess the discernment of evil or good, you have received; and that you have received a rule of living through the written bond of the law—this you cannot deny that you pledged to God who covenanted with you.
But while you plunge yourself through the vices of the flesh into the mire like a sow, and living after the manner of quadrupeds are deprived of the reason with which you are endowed, and in the whirlpool of crimes confound the discernment of good or evil now lost, and squander the substance of the divine law, a captive to worldly pleasure, you have become a mournful debtor of the glorious loan, for whom, the profits of virtues failing, the interest of crimes is multiplied. Yet although in this matter you have fallen, although you have been rolled down into it, see that you do not despair: O man, there remains to you a means whereby you may make satisfaction to the most merciful creditor. Do you wish to be absolved? Love. Charity covers a multitude of sins (1 Pet. 4:8). What is worse than the crime of denial? And yet Peter by love alone was able to blot it out, the Lord approving, when he says: 'Peter, do you love me?' (John
21:12)? Among all the precepts of God, love holds the primacy. 'You shall love,' he says, 'the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole mind, and with your whole strength' (Matt. 22). Love therefore, O man, love God, and love him wholly, that you may be able without labor to conquer all things and to blot out your sins. It belongs to a tender warfare and a delicate combat to carry off the victory over all crimes by love alone, as is made clear from what follows. 'Turning,' it says, 'to the woman, he said to Simon.' What does it mean, that turning to the woman Christ speaks to Simon? Because when he looks upon the penitent, he reproves the reviler. He said to Simon: 'Do you see this woman?'
'I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head. You gave me no kiss, but she from the time I entered has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I say to you: to her many sins are forgiven, because she has loved much; but to whom less is forgiven, the same loves less.' It is proved that love blots out and washes away all sins. But what does it mean that he said, 'To whom less is forgiven, he loves less'? Is it then enough, for the sake of sinning, that a greater charity be procured? By no means. Charity comes to the aid of things past; it does not set free from things to come.
Charity knows not how to sin while it loves; if it transgresses, charity is not charity; the charity of God is the guardian of holiness. Brethren, if we know ourselves to be sinners, and do not wish to be sinners, let us give tears to the feet of Christ, let us spread out our hair, let us fasten kisses upon them, let us pour out the oil of piety with all devotion; that it may be said to us: 'To you many sins are forgiven, because you have loved much.' Let us imitate this woman, whom we behold not only to have been freed from her sins, but to have arrived at the very summit of holiness. But who this woman is—since today's sermon on charity has delayed us, as we have already promised—we shall, with God as author, unfold in what follows.