A PRESUMPTION
Thursday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
My dear encountered couples:
We have all sinned and we have all been forgiven. According to the way Simon the Pharisee thought, it is to be assumed we are all grateful in proportion to the number of sins we have committed and which have been forgiven us. This is not necessarily so!
When it comes to being forgiven by God, gratefulness on our part must never be assumed, presumed, or taken for granted. Gratitude is not always an automatic response for human beings. Just think of the many people you have done things for and no gratitude was forthcoming. It was like you never did it. How many times does God forgive us our sins, we just take it for granted, and show no thankfulness in word or deed?
“Simon,” Jesus said to his host at dinner. “Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed a total of five hundred coins, the other fifty. Since neither was able to repay, he wrote off both debts. Which of them was more grateful to him?” Simon answered, “He, I presume, to whom he remitted the larger sum.”
The woman who anointed Jesus with the perfumed oil showed her gratitude; it was obvious. That is not always the case with everybody. I wonder how many of us offend against common decency by not showing gratitude to God for the forgiveness of our sins.
Let us not let this day pass without showing some sign of appreciation in some physical and obvious way. How can we do that? The woman showed her appreciation by doing something nice directly for Christ. Anything we do for others, we are also doing for him.
