De meretrice

Of the same holy John Chrysostom, a homily on the Pharisee and the prostitute. At every time, repentance is good and salutary for those who employ it, but especially in these days of fasting it becomes beneficial for all people who run to its embrace. For now our souls, putting aside corpulence as a heavy burden, easily take flight toward the creator and master God, and they fervently accuse themselves of their own transgressions, and they ask for forgiveness for their faults from the compassionate judge. It is therefore opportune for us to bring forward as a teacher of repentance that prostitute who clung to the immaculate footsteps of the Lord Christ, who washed away the record of her most base life with streams of tears, whom the Lord, having mercy, wiped clean and, pitying, cleansed. Let us then go back to the Gospel narrative, so that we may both behold the philanthropy of Christ and marvel at the woman's persistence, and learn from her how we too, the sinners, ought to run to the redeemer God and receive from him the forgiveness of our transgressions. "One of the Pharisees asked the Lord to eat with him; and entering the house of the Pharisee, he reclined." Do you see the condescension of God? Do you see the mystery of the divine economy? Do you see the excess of philanthropy? He who gives food to every flesh, invited to a meal by his servant, undoubtedly came to him, so that through the dining he might demonstrate the magnitude of his own condescension.

And she entered the house of the Pharisee, as a human being, He who fills every place with His divinity, in order to display both the economy and the philanthropy. "And behold, a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that He was reclining in the house of the Pharisee, took an alabaster flask of precious ointment, and standing behind Him, began to wet His feet with her tears, and to wipe them with the hair of her head, and to kiss His feet and anoint them with the ointment"—saying nothing openly to Him. For she feared lest some foul word, issuing from her sinful lips, might move the philanthropic judge to anger against her. But in silence she wove her intercession, and making confession only in her heart, she offered her supplication to the only master who knows the inmost thoughts, and cried out to Him, the philanthropic one, in her mind: "I have dared to approach you, master, through your mother and virgin, as you alone know as creator and God; through her, then, your ever-virgin mother and virgin, have mercy on me, the prostitute; grant me forgiveness of my transgressions; through her virginity, pity my prostitution; have mercy, O philanthropic one, on her who weeps, whom you rightly hated when she laughed well; have mercy on her who groans in soul, whom you justly turned away from when she adorned her body for the ruin and deception of many; have mercy on the locks of hair, which you yourself created for the adornment of my head, but which I adorned for the destruction of my soul.

Receive the myrrh, as a heavenly myrrh, and wipe away the filth of my life; receive this myrrh, and grant me spiritual myrrh, O fountain of good things; wash me, who have been befouled, O all-powerful physician; heal me, who have received many wounds from the devil; scrape away the leprosy of sins from my soul, as you scraped away the stain of the body from the faithful leper; dry up the streams of my lawless deeds, as you dried up the channels of the woman with the hemorrhage with the hem of your garment; have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David, as you had mercy on that Canaanite woman, the lowly but faithful one." As the harlot was faithfully making these supplications with tears in the secret workshop of her soul, all who were reclining at table were astonished at the forbearance of the Savior, seeing him calmly enduring her harlot's kisses and the grasp of sinful hands. But the Pharisee, who had invited him to dinner, in the hidden workshops of his soul was stirring up blasphemous thoughts against him, and was blaming the Savior's philanthropy as ignorance, saying to himself: "This man, if he were a prophet, would know what sort of woman is touching him, that she is a sinner." The Pharisee's mind is altogether inhuman and blind. But what does the only good and philanthropic one, the giver of good things, say to him? "Simon, Simon, I have something to say to you—I have heard words you did not utter, I have known the counsels of your soul; I know the thoughts you have pondered in your mind against me; and for this reason I answer you though you have said nothing, so that from my answer you may learn the power of my divinity.

so that from my words you may recognize that I am a maker of souls and an overseer of hearts. If, then, you wish to call me a prophet, or even a creator of prophets, the man you see before you, call me and glorify me as you wish. "Simon, Simon, I have something to tell you. There were two debtors to a certain lender. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Since they did not have the means to repay, he forgave both. Which one, then, ought to love him more?" The Pharisee answered, "I suppose the one to whom he forgave the greater amount." The Savior said to him, "You have judged correctly." And you owe me many accounts of your own life, and I have forgiven you, just as I have forgiven this woman the charges of her conduct. And when you called me, I willingly obeyed and became your housemate and table-companion, not because I am needy or lacking food, but because I am rich in mercy, accepting the repentance of those who come to me and forgiving their sins. Why, then, do you slander my condescension? Why do you revile my philanthropy, of which you yourself were the first to partake? Why do you demand such strictness from others, which, if I were to show now, would not benefit you? Why do you call my goodness to account, when you yourself have been in need of it? "And turning to the woman, he said to Simon, 'Do you see this woman?'" O the infinite height of God's philanthropy! O the unsurpassable magnitude of the Lord's forbearance! He called the acknowledged prostitute "woman" gently; he concealed the name of her evil choice and brought forward the common name of her nature.

Do you see this woman—whom I once beheld with the eyes of divinity; the one who came in unbidden to us; the first and only one to show a noble shamelessness; the one who, at the opportune moment, displayed a life-bearing audacity; the one accused by you of many charges, on account of which she approached life, and did not dare, as one without a face, to stand face to face, but hid behind, and became a reproach through her former life? "I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet; but she bathed my feet with her tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head." The feet that the sea did not wet with its waves, she washed with her tears and supplicated with her kisses. When did you ever learn of such a woman making her own hair a towel, as she did upon my feet? "You gave me no kiss," and yet you were just, having invited us to a meal, to be the first to meet and embrace me and show all signs of friendliness; but you did not do this, "while she, from the moment I entered your house, did not cease kissing my feet." See her insatiable longing and punish your own slanderous manner; look at her and learn from her weeping, if you too will not love the one you untimely hated. "You did not anoint my head with oil, but she anointed my feet with myrrh; for which reason, I tell you, her many sins are forgiven.

Let us therefore, brothers, emulate this faithful and wondrous prostitute, and while we still have an opportunity for repentance in these few days of the fast, let us hasten, through a pure life and excellent conduct, through fasting, through almsgiving, through tears, through confession, to cleanse away all the filth and stain of our many sins, so that we may also hear the gentle voice of the benevolent master saying to us: Your sins are forgiven; that we may become heirs of the heavenly kingdom, and be deemed worthy of the blessed voice that says: Come, the blessed ones of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you—may we all attain this by the grace and benevolence of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father together with the Holy Spirit be glory, power, honor, now and always, and unto the ages of ages, amen.