Which Of Them Would Love Him More?
(By Fr. Dexter Brereton)
Stealing Love On The Side
As a boy, my older relatives were quite fond of a popular song called “Stealing love on the side” about the feelings of lovers who literally steal love to which they really have no right.
In this Sunday’s Gospel Story, an unnamed woman ‘steals a chance’ to encounter Jesus while he is at dinner in the house of a Pharisee at dinner. In the process she ‘crashes’ the private meal and offends the host. The Pharisee seeing who she was, is upset since according to his judgment, she clearly does not belong. More than this, he is also irritated with Jesus, who allows this ‘unclean’ woman to touch him.
The story reminds me of our perennial debates in the church about the right to communion and the ‘right’ to receive the sacraments in general. Most Catholics I know have a wonderful sense of ‘law’ and appreciate a parish that is well organized and ‘orderly’ above all. The woman in this story represents that part of us that we normally would not publicly acknowledge, the ‘untidy edges’ of our personality, the unkempt areas of our lives which have need of God’s mercy and forgiveness.
When Jesus asks his host the question “which one will love him more?” I can’t help but think of those persons who ‘steal a chance’ to go to communion even though they are clearly ‘living in sin’, or someone from another faith tradition who is absolutely fascinated with the Catholic church and is prepared to attend mass as an ‘outsider.’ This woman reveals another face of the Church, perhaps its truer face. None of us has a ‘right’ to the unconditional love of God. We are all stealing love on the side.
