If some of you are visiting, I set a little timer here for 12 minutes.  It's a good act of discipline for any preacher.  

Anyhow, I love this gospel, I think for obvious reasons.  But I want to tell you a little true story in connection with the gospel.  True story.  1960, I was a new young priest.  I had only been a priest about two weeks and I was asked to cover a parish in New York for two nights.  The priest who was there was giving a lecture series, so he said to me, "For two nights would you answer the phone at night?" in this very posh parish in New York.  And I said, "Oh, sure."  Just answer the phone, door, "Oh, sure."  

And it was a night like, well, last night, a lovely late spring evening.  Warm.  Lovely.  And there was a knock on the door.  This is a very gorgeous setup, Upper East Side, Park Avenue.  And I opened the door, and there was a lady, and she said, "Evening, Sweetie."  And she wasn't offensive, it was just that was she.  "Hi Sweetie."  She said, "I want to get a mass card.  I want a mass said for thanksgiving.  Can we do that?"  I said, "Sure.  Come in.”  So we went and we sat down in the parlor.  And she said, "I want a mass to give thanks to Jesus because I've had a bad life, and I want to say a mass to thank Him because recently I went to confession, and recently I went on a retreat, and I recently closed down the house."  The house.  She had a very lucrative "house" on the Upper East Side.  And she said, "I had to let the ladies go."  Ladies.  Not the girls.  "I had to let the ladies go.  And I made a good retreat and a good confession.  You say a mass for me, Sweetie, to give thanks."  

And she handed me an envelope.  And then she said, "I want to talk.  Can I talk a little?"  I said, "Sure."  And then she began to talk at length about her life.  And after half an hour she said, "Oh, Sweetie, I think I'm shocking you".  And I was thinking, "Shock me.  Please!  I've been in the seminary since I was 15!"  But somehow she remained within the boundaries of good taste.  But she had had quite a life.  She handed me an envelope, and she said, "This is to say the mass of thanks that I'm back in the Church."  And Canon Law -- boing! -- went off in my head, Church law.  "DO NOT TAKE MONEY FOR GUILTY PRACTICES."  And I said, "Oh, I'd be delighted to say mass for your intentions, but I don't need any stipend."  She said, "Listen, Sweetie, if you don't want it for yourself, give it to a charity."  And as I was preparing this last week,  I remembered saying the mass the very next day.  I remember it vividly.  But I can't remember what I did with the money.  I think my ethical training was strong enough as a young priest that I did do something good with it.  It's just not as clear as saying mass.  

Now, this is what she said as she was leaving.  And whenever I hear stuff like this I write it down immediately -- all my life.  As she's going down the stairs, she said, "Nothing, nothing, nothing," three times.  She said, "Nothing, nothing, nothing is the feeling of starting fresh, the feeling of being forgiven."  And then she said, "Good night, Sweetie."  

Today's gospel is a gospel and then some.  I've never been able to understand this:  If you go to an open meeting of a 12-step program, sometimes you find out people say, "Oh, all those signs with the word God in it, yuck!"  All I can think is what kind of a God were you brought up with?  I used to think to myself, "Did you ever hear today's gospel?"  I believe Jesus was God.  Why would you be scared of Him?  He was always reaching His hand out, welcoming people home.  Always.

Anyhow, let's meditate on the gospel just briefly.  I have set the little alarm clock here.            
St. Ignatius, in the 16th Century, said all of us can meditate.  Don't be scared of the word.  We all meditate.  I still meditate intensely on Patricia Collins who in the eighth grade broke my heart at the eighth grade dance.  I had byzantine, medieval tortures in mind for her -- To this day I am meditating, but not in a very wholesome manner.  Meditate on today's gospel as St. Ignatius suggests.  What do you see?  What do you hear?  What can you touch?  Especially, what do you smell?  And then it's real. 

Okay.  It's very hot.  I've checked this all out with Bible scholars.  This thing took place about ten days before Our Lord was crucified.  About ten days.  So in Our Lord's land at this time of year, spring, it was very hot in the Holy Land.  And no air-conditioning.  And all these pharisees were packed in.  Pharisees?  Pharisees?  Why had they invited Jesus to dinner?  Not for amiable small talk.  To trap Him.  You know the gospels.  We've got to catch Him!  We'll catch Him on some interpretation of the Torah.  We'll catch Him on some footnote in the Book of Deuteronomy.  We'll catch Him.  We'll catch this Jesus of Nazareth.  You know that.  

And when our Lord walks in, the host, Simon, doesn't give Him all the normal greetings that you give a Jewish guest.  No water for the head, no water for the dirty feet with the dust and the sandals, no kiss on the cheek, the normal Jewish greeting to a guest.  Simon points Jesus to where He should sit.  And I'm positive that the Pharisees are lined up here, Jesus there.  They're not going to mingle with this Jesus.  What do you taste?  You taste revenge, revenge on the lips of these Pharisees.  Now we'll get Him.  Now we'll get Him.  It's human nature.  And Jesus is sitting there alone, looking.  And they're reclining.  By reclining, it's reclining.  They didn't have chairs.  You leaned on cushions on the floor.  Okay.  And it's hot, and it has the humid dank redolence of male sweat.  

I was at a graduation yesterday in San Francisco.  It was so long, and so hot and so boring.  And halfway through, a lady came in very late, and she sidled into the aisle in front of me.  And she had put on some kind of perfume.  And you could see everybody around you just, Ahhh!  It may have been heavy, but thank goodness.  

And this lady comes in.  She's carrying perfume, and she comes in and she makes a scene.  There's no other word for it.  She makes a scene.  First, no woman is allowed in a gathering of Pharisees.  No woman.  Not your mother, not your daughter, not your aunt, not your wife.  Forbidden.  And if you enter, maybe at the door to put in some food, you wear a veil.  Respectable women in our Lord's day wore veils.  That's why Mary is always portrayed with a veil.  If you're a loose woman, your hair is loose.  By law, if you bumped up against this lady in an alleyway on your way home and her scarf or her hair brushed against you, you went home and bathed seven times.  And here she shimmers in, hair loose, and makes a scene, a delicious scene for Jesus' enemies.  Weeping, cleaning His feet with her hair, sobbing, holding onto Him.  We got Him!  We got Him!  We got him!  We've got him!  That's what the Pharisees were thinking. 

But, oh, that smell.  Oh, that fragrance.  The jar.  Bible specialists have worked out the Aramaic-Greek translations.  The jar was as big as a man's fist.  Only the wives of emperors or highly successful ladies like this would get such a gift from a grateful client.  You could only open it once.  The approximate price in our language would be about 300 bucks.  And you opened it once by pressing the aperture at the top with your thumb, and it would crack open.  And the lady would scoop up this delicious nectar, nard perfume and pour it on her hair, her neck and her breasts.  And you could only use it once.  And she pours it on Jesus' feet.  And the smell, that gorgeous fragrance permeates this hot male sweat room.  

And then Jesus forgives her.  She is loved much.  She is forgiven much.  He turns to the host and says, "You didn't do anything like that for me.  No kiss.  No water for my sandaled feet.  She's done everything."  And he says, "Go in peace.  Your sins are forgiven."  And out she goes.  I bet she tossed her hair and her face was probably translucent with radiance.  That's the past life.  I wonder if she recognized anyone.  Hey, Izzie, how's the family?  Ishma, how's the wife?  As they all pull in their feet so they won't contact her.  The last thing we hear about this lady, according to the scholars, is on Good Friday.  She's the lady who is standing next to our Lady at the foot of the cross, according to the scholars.  She's had a life of shame.  She's not embarrassed.  This Jesus is dying naked and breathing, asphyxiating on a cross, and this lady is standing right next to His mother.  She's not ashamed of being embarrassed.  And she's had a life of shame.  What's one more embarrassment?  

Okay.  I'm going to shut up, and I'm going to suggest a little thought for you and me.  By the end of June or the end of the summer – yeah, by the end of June or the end of summer could you contact somebody to whom you want to ask -- I know it's not easy, but I got somebody in mind, too -- to whom you want to ask, "Hey, am I forgiven?  Am I forgiven?"  I know it's not easy.  Because, Sweetie, nothing, nothing, nothing is better than starting new.  Nothing, nothing, nothing is better than the feeling of being forgiven.  Okay.  So, Sweeties, we're going to think about it quietly.  

cml