📚 Gospel Reading for Monday of the 17th Week after Pentecost

Luke 7:36–50 (NKJV)

Then one of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with him. And He went to the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to eat.

And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, and stood at His feet behind Him weeping; and she began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil.

Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he spoke to himself, saying, “This Man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner.”

And Jesus answered and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.”

So he said, “Teacher, say it.”

“There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him more?”

Simon answered and said, “I suppose the one whom he forgave more.”

And He said to him, “You have rightly judged.”

Then He turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. You gave Me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in. You did not anoint My head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil. Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.”

Then He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

And those who sat at the table with Him began to say to themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”

Then He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

😄🙏😂👍👆❤️🙈

Thoughts of St. Theophan the Recluse

(Phil 4:10–23; Lk 7:36–50)

Why did it come about that Simon the Pharisee honored the Lord and invited Him to his house, yet as soon as he saw that He graciously allowed a sinful woman to approach Him, he was scandalized and began to think: “If He were a prophet…” (Luke 7:39)? It happened because he became occupied with the preparation of the meal, and in the midst of these concerns he left aside sound reasoning concerning the order of God.

These two realms—the worldly and the spiritual—are not at all alike in their qualities and in their laws. Yet our mind, whatever it becomes engaged with, tends to judge according to those laws.

By worldly order, one may not have communion with an openly sinful woman; and so Simon judged, forgetting that repentance makes all clean, and places sinners on equal ground with the righteous. He thought that the sinful woman should not be there, and that the Savior—if He did not drive her away—must not know who she was. From this thought there immediately arose another: if He does not know, then what kind of prophet is He?

These words Simon did not utter aloud, but only conceived within himself; outwardly there was no change in him, nor in his careful attentiveness as a good host. Yet the Lord saw his heart, and according to his heart gave him instruction. He taught him that it is precisely sinners who have a place beside Him, and that the sinful woman, who had inclined herself toward Him with her heart, had shown Him greater honor than Simon himself, who had honored Him only with a banquet.

External observances lead a person into a self-satisfied feeling of righteousness, which is displeasing to the Lord. But the inward disposition always keeps one in the sense of one’s own unworthiness before the all-seeing Lord.