Salve, Regina, Mater Misericordiae.
It's amazing, God's providence, how he can teach us a lesson through the free will of men
in this beautiful passage, one of the most beautiful, touching passages in the Gospel.
How our Lord takes this situation with the Pharisee and this woman
and teaches us a lesson out of their actions as a providential organization, you could say,
teaching us that little is forgiven to those whose love is small.
And this is true for those who don't serve God at all.
They don't perhaps have any love, and little is forgiven for them.
But it may be true as well for us who know our faith but have little love.
We do the externals, but we don't have any depth to us.
This is where that heresy of activism fits in.
We do a lot of work and do a lot of talking, maybe.
We do a lot of things that are showy, but we don't have any depth of love in our hearts.
Or maybe we're content to avoid mortal sin, maybe just make it to heaven
and be satisfied with that, living a mediocre life.
But have little love and maybe spend a long time in purgatory for our little love.
We live a routine life.
We go to Sunday Mass, maybe, or practice our faith through the week,
but it's shallow, superficial, and little love.
Our Lord is looking for love and strong love, deep love, not superficial, not little love.
And when we have only little love, we accomplish very little.
So,
we do very little.
We're very little motivated to serve God.
We spend more of our time with external things, talking a lot, maybe doing a lot of things
or wasting a lot of time watching too much TV or doing too many things on the surface
and little for God in the sense of love and sacrifice and deep service for God.
And
the example here is Mary Magdalene.
This passage may have been, the woman here may have been Mary Magdalene.
Many Orthodox scholars believe that it was her who did this.
And maybe she went and entered the Pharisee's house at this time to show her honor and love
and thanks to God for his mercy to Jesus for some words that he may have said to her.
And just before this or something he did that touched her heart recently before this.
And so she comes into the Pharisee's house.
Apparently at that time, the custom of the Israelites was to keep their door open when they had major meals like this
and the poor would come and people would come.
And so she was able to enter and make this sign of homage to our Lord.
But she did it with great love.
And she,
you know it's like that those 10 lepers,
only one leper came back to thank God.
He didn't have to, but he had that deep gratitude and love and thanks to God.
And so he came back and made that effort to come back and thank Jesus.
And Jesus praised him.
Mary Magdalene didn't have to do this.
She, with her overflowing love,
she wanted to come and humiliate herself before these Pharisees who she knew would
insult her.
Think badly of her.
She just had one thought to come before our Lord and thank him and show him her love in
return for his mercy to her, his kindness and his love to her.
She came and did that.
She had that depth of love that made her sacrifice and to do this great act of love to God.
And so this is what we are doing.
This is what we want to have, this depth,
not a superficiality of our faith,
but a deep love which we have to acquire.
We have to acquire this through prayer and through thoughtfulness of God's blessings to us and goodness to us and love to us.
We need to really find out how to love if we don't have it,
if we only have a little.
We need to go out into the deep.
Go out into the deep of prayer, spending time in prayer and silence and giving our heart and our life to God.
I was thinking about this once when I was reading a book of the City of God by Mary of Agrida.
And I came across a passage on this very subject,
which was so profound that I made a copy of it and kept it for myself to reflect on.
And it was,
how do I know how,
whether I love,
God?
What are some signs of this?
Or what do I need to look at to see if I have that love for God?
And this passage,
which is a long paragraph,
and I identified 14 different signs of this true,
genuine love for God.
And I'll just conclude with these signs.
The first is,
do I think about God a lot?
Do I meditate upon Him?
Do I think about Him throughout the,
throughout the day?
Of course if we love somebody,
we think about them a lot.
Do we think about God a lot
through the day,
through my life?
Is He always in my thoughts and in my meditations.
The second is do His commandments cause me any repugnance?
Or am I inclined to want to do them?
Do I like them?
Am I happy with them?
Do I love them?
with them? Do I find my joy in fulfilling the commandments of God? The third is, am I afraid
to offend God or am I insensitive? Do I do things wrong and not feel bad about it? Do I go through
many weeks without going to confession to get rid of them and to cleanse my heart and to
express my sorrow to God? Or am I insensitive? Am I afraid to offend God? This is the idea of
perfect and imperfect contrition. The perfect contrition is the, I'm sorry because I offended
God, not because I'm embarrassed for what I did wrong or I'm afraid of going to hell, which is
supernatural, but it's not perfect.
I want to have that perfect contrition and sorrow by having fear, fear of offending God.
The fourth one was, do I grieve at the offenses that I've committed against him? Or do I grieve
when I see other people who have committed wrong? Does that make me feel bad? Am I sorry for that?
Or do I make some kind of act of expiation for that, a reparation for what I've done or what
other people have done? Are there any possibilities that I get to obey God? Or am I short mama or am
I perfect? I want to have that perfect contrition and sorrow by having fear, fear of offending God. The
others have done? The fifth is do I rejoice at others who serve God? Do I rejoice at the good
or am I a bit envious at the holiness of other people or the good actions that other people do?
Do I rejoice at the good that everyone does?
The sixth one is do I love to speak of God? Do I love to speak about him in conversation?
Or do I prefer to speak about worldly things or trivial things, etc.?
The seventh is do I delight in the memory of the presence of God in my heart? Do I delight in
thinking of his presence? The eighth is do I grieve if I forget about God? I go through a
whole day without thinking of God. That should bother me. Or do I go through hours without
thinking about God?
God or doing things for the purpose of
pleasing God? Do I grieve over that? Am I
sorry? And do I go back to God saying that I am sorry for forgetting
him and not keeping him in mind? The ninth
is do I love what God loves and do I hate what he
hates? Sin. Do we hate sin as God hates it? Do we love
goodness and virtue and holy
things? The tenth is
do I strive to bring everyone to God? Am I
evangelical? Am I zealous to bring souls to God? Or do I
just not do much, not care
much about the salvation of other souls? The sign of
whether we really love God and love our neighbor. The eleventh
is to pray with confidence. Have
confidence in God who
listens to our prayers and wants to answer them, but we need to have that confidence
that God does love us and wants to
give us what we want if we have that confidence in
him. The twelfth is are we grateful to God
for the gifts that he gives to us? Do we thank him? Do we have that spirit of
thanksgiving as St. Paul says? Am I dedicated
to thanksgiving? The thirteenth is
a prophet. Do I just say thank you and just go my way or do I use those gifts to God's
glory and to my greater benefit? Do I use those talents and make them grow?
And the fourteenth last is do I strive to extinguish the passions in my soul? Do I strive
to grow in holiness and root out my faults and make that effort to grow in virtue to
please God better?
Praise be Jesus and Mary.
Praise be to God.