St Luke

Do you see this woman? (Lk 7:44)

St Luke, whose feast we celebrate today, is the author of his own Gospel which helps us understand the life of Christ, and the Acts of the Apostles, the parallel story of the church. Called by St Paul a physician, Luke addressed his gospel primarily to the Gentiles and emphasizes three critical aspects of the Christian life: salvation is for all, the poor play an important role in helping us understand God, and the mercy of Jesus is foundational to understanding the Christian life.

While Luke would have not been overly concerned with convincing his gentile audience that Jesus was the Messiah of the Jews, he very much wanted the new Christians in Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi and Thessalonica to hear of God’s special love for those whose lives had collapsed into illness, poverty and sin. Luke tells us about Samaritans and shepherds, the prodigal son and the lost sheep, but it is the sinful, unnamed woman who washed Jesus feet with her tears and dried them with her hair whose story convinces us that God is merciful beyond our imaginations. The story is so dramatic and compelling, and so full of detail that we wonder whether Luke actually knew the woman or her children?

Jesus, Luke tells us, allows himself to be touched and washed by a woman who had lived a sinful life. Any observant Jew watching this scene would have wondered what Jesus was thinking, but it is the Pharisee who takes the bait. He immediately concludes that Jesus could not be a prophet since he was allowing a sinful woman to touch him, wash his feet with her tears and dry them with her hair. But Jesus reads the Pharisee's heart, tells him a simple parable and then asks the key question of the passage. “Do you see this woman?” The answer is simple and shaming. Of course not. The Pharisee was trying to test Jesus and saw nothing but his possible triumph over an imposter. He could not see the woman as a person. He only saw Jesus failing to keep the law by allowing a sinner to wash his feet and rub them with expensive oil. His shame reminds us to listen more deeply to every person we meet, not to judge but to seek understanding and offer mercy.

Today, ask St. Luke for the grace to see all those to whom you have been blind and pray that others might see past your faults to the person trying to live a gospel life.