All the things that are related as having been done bodily by Christ are so supported by historical truth that they are ever proved to be full of heavenly mysteries. And since we have already touched, in a repeated discourse, upon what lay on the surface of the reading, pray that, as we promised, we may unfold its inner meaning, the Holy Spirit revealing it. Dishonorable is that manner of speaking which sets forth the deeds of God by a merely human exposition. 'A certain Pharisee,' it says, 'asked the Lord to eat with him' (Luke 7). The Pharisee, brethren, is called the catholic, so to speak, of the Jews; for he believes in the resurrection, and dissents from the Sadducee who denies the resurrection. Hence it is that he asks Christ—that is, the author of the resurrection—to eat with him:
because he who dines with Christ knows not how to die, but assuredly lives forever. He was asking the Lord to eat with him. You ask, O Pharisee, to eat with him; believe, become a Christian, that you may eat of him. 'I am,' he says, 'the bread that came down from heaven' (John 6). God always bestows more than he is asked for; for he who was asked gave himself to be eaten, that he might grant the confidence of eating with him; and yet he so gave this that he did not deny that which he was asked for. Does he not promise this also of his own accord to his disciples? 'You who have persevered with me shall eat and drink at my table in my kingdom' (Luke 22). O Christian, he who gave himself here to be eaten by you, what of his own could he deny you in the future?
And he who prepared for you so great a viaticum for your food, what has he not prepared for you in that perpetual mansion? 'You shall eat at my table in my kingdom.' You have heard of God's banquet; be not anxious about the quality of the banquet. He who is worthy to come to the king's table shall eat whatever the dominion and power of the kingdom possesses; so he who comes to the banquet of the Creator shall have among his delights whatever is contained in creation. But let us return to what we began. 'And he entered the house of the Pharisee.' What house? Surely he reclined having entered the synagogue. In the synagogue, brethren, he then reclined, when Christ lay in death; but he sent his body to the table of the Church, that there might be heavenly flesh for the nations who would eat it unto salvation.
'Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you' (John 6). But how the flesh of Christ is eaten, how his blood also is drunk, they know who have been instructed in the heavenly mysteries. 'Behold,' it says, 'a woman who was in the city, a sinner.' What woman? The Church, without doubt. A sinner in the city. In what city? That of which the prophet had said: 'How is the faithful city Zion become a harlot?' (Isa. 1). And elsewhere: 'I have seen iniquity and contradiction in the city, and iniquity and toil in the midst of it, and injustice; and usury and deceit have not departed from its streets' (Ps. 54).
In the city, therefore, hedged about with the walls of unbelief, fortified with the towers of pride, marked out with the streets of iniquities, barred with the gates of contradictions, painted with the dyes of deceit, hardened from the flints of usuries, weighed down with the sorrows of business, made infamous by brothels—that is, by the temples of idols—this woman, that is, the Church, was dragging a most grievous guilt from so great a filth of preceding sins. But when she heard that Christ had come to the house of the Pharisee—that is, to the synagogue—there, that is, at the Jewish Passover, to have handed down the mysteries of his passion, to have opened up the sacrament of his body and blood, to have made manifest the secret of our redemption, despising the Scribes as most wicked doorkeepers—'Woe to you, lawyers, who have taken away the key of knowledge!' (Luke 11)—
having broken through the doors of contradictions, having scorned the very leadership of the Pharisaic choir, burning, panting, seething, she came through to the whole inner recess of the lawful banquet; and there she found Christ handed over amid the feasts of love and the sweet cups, and slain by fraud according to the Jewish manner—according to that saying of the prophet: 'For if my enemy had reproached me, I would surely have borne it; and if he who hated me had spoken evil things against me, I would surely have hidden myself from him: but you, a man of one mind, my leader and my familiar, who took sweet food with me; in the house of the Lord we walked with consent' (Ps. 54). When she recognized that the Lord had reclined in the house of the Pharisee—that is, in the synagogue—delivered up by every guile, by all fraud, having suffered, been crucified, and buried;
yet she is not held back from the fervor of faith by so great an injury, but she carries the ointment, she carries the oil of the Christian's chrism: and because she did not deserve to see the bodily face of Christ, she stands behind—not in place, but in time—she clings to his footsteps, that she may follow; and now she pours out the tears of desire rather than of conscience, that him whom she did not deserve to see departing, she may deserve to see returning. She therefore bathes the feet of the Lord with tears from a flowing love; while she holds with the hands of good works the feet of those who evangelize his kingdom, she washes them with the tears of charity, she kisses them with the lips of confession, and pours out the whole ointment of mercy, until, turning to her—what is 'turning'?
that is, having returned, he may say to Simon, may say to the Pharisees, may say to the deniers, may say to the people of the Jews: 'I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet.' And when will he say these things? When he shall come in the majesty of his Father, and shall separate the just from the unjust as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and he shall say: 'I was hungry, and you gave me no food; I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink; I was a stranger, and you did not take me in.' This is to say, 'You gave me no water for my feet'; but she, while she washes the feet of my own, anoints the feet, kisses the feet, has done for the servants what you did not do for the Lord (Matt. 25); she has done for the feet what you denied to the head, she has bestowed on the least what you denied to your own author. Then he shall say to the Church:
'Many sins are forgiven you, because you have loved much.' For then shall there be remission of sins, when the whole matter of sinning shall be taken away, when corruption shall put on incorruption, when mortality shall attain to immortality, when the flesh of sin shall be made flesh of all holiness, when earthly servitude shall be exchanged for heavenly dominion, when human warfare shall be promoted to the divine kingdom. Pray, brethren, that we too, being established in the portion of the Church, may deserve to attain to those things which we have enumerated, Christ himself being the author, to whom is honor and glory with the Holy Spirit unto the ages of ages. Amen.