Crisis of Faith/Crisis of Love

by Fr. Thomas Keating

Chapter 10

Great Faith Moves to Great Love

The feast of St. Mary Magdalen is for liturgists a rather perplexing feast. From the time of St. Gregory the Great, if not before, Mary Magdalen has been identified in everybody’s mind with the great sinner who washed the feet of Jesus with her tears and dried them with her hair.33 Modern research has spoiled everything and discovered that there are really three women who are commemorated in this feast. The feast is named in honor of St. Mary Magdalen. The liturgy recounts her exploits.34 The gospel talks about the penitent woman in a town of Galilee, and Mary of Bethany is clearly identified in the prayer of the Mass as the one whose prayers raised Lazarus from the dead. To all appearances then, the liturgy seems to be confused, to say the least.

Actually, on closer examination, the liturgy is not so far wrong after all. Although numerically three distinct feasts would seem to be in order, the Church is really celebrating one great idea, one great spiritual experience. When you compare what happened to these three women, there is something which makes Mary Magdalen one with the penitent woman after she passed through her trial of faith, and one with Mary of Bethany after Jesus raised Lazarus from the tomb. What the Church is celebrating is that sublime degree of confidence and love which results from holding fast to faith in the midst of great trials. These are three women who successfully passed through what I have been calling the crisis of faith. We honor in the liturgy not only these three women, but everyone who has successfully passed to the love of God through suffering and humiliation.

Let us compare the experiences of the three women to see what I mean. Mary of Bethany in her great trial held fast to faith in the midst of the colossal challenge that Jesus threw out to her and Martha, namely, his promise to raise from the dead the corpse of their brother Lazarus, already beginning to decompose. She believed without faltering.

When at Jesus’ bidding, Lazarus came forth from the tomb, what do you suppose her feelings were toward Jesus? Anyone who has been through any great trial and who has experienced the divine help in one way or another will understand what a flood of gratitude poured into her heart when she realized that her confidence in him had not been misplaced.

We are not surprised, then, to learn about the lavish proof of love which Mary of Bethany gave Jesus at the supper in Simon the Leper’s house six days before the Passover.35

During the supper she appeared carrying a whole pound of expensive perfume. Wishing to give expression to the extent of her love, gratitude, and utter dedication, she poured out the whole contents of the jar over his head and feet. This gesture was the symbol, as far as she was concerned, of her whole being. That is why it meant so much to Jesus. He recognized very clearly what the perfume, together with that lavish gesture, signified and praised her extravagance in the face of the outraged apostles who were reclining at the table.

Let us look now at Mary Magdalen at the tomb of Jesus. She had lost him and was searching for him with great heaviness of heart and distraction of mind. He appeared to her first before anyone else, as a reward for her ardent and eager longing. When he called her by her name, he unloosed in her heart, a flood of gratitude and joy. She became completely his possession.

The penitent woman described in Luke was given a similar grace.36

Her trouble was personal. Mary of Bethany was filled with gratitude to Jesus for having delivered her brother, whom she loved so much. She is an example of one who reaches this degree of gratitude through love for someone else. She prayed for Lazarus, and receiving the extraordinary answer to her prayers, achieved the same inner transformation as that of the penitent woman. In the latter’s case it was the forgiveness of her own sins that transformed her into an ocean of love. We are told that Jesus was invited to the house of a certain Pharisee and reclined at the table. Without warning, a woman who was a scandal in the town came in.

“After making sure that he was at table at the home of the Pharisee, she brought with her an alabaster box of perfume.” They must have manufactured alabaster flasks in those days because Mary of Bethany had the same kind of bottle when she anointed Jesus later on. There are many things which are strikingly similar in the accounts of the two women. However, their temperaments seem to have been quite different.

“She took her stand behind him at his feet and wept.” She was certainly sorry for her sins. She wanted to be forgiven, and she did not know whether she would be. That was her trial. She was not interested in somebody else’s sins, but her own. She evidently had plenty.

“Yielding to an impulse,” (and it certainly came from the Holy Spirit, judging by the results) “she rained her tears on his feet and wiped them with her hair. She tenderly kissed his feet and anointed them with perfume.”

The embarrassed host noticed all this and said to himself, “This man, if he were a prophet” (that is to say, if he had any discernment) “would know who, and what sort of creature this woman is who makes such a fuss over him. She is obviously a scandalous person.”

I dare say that it would not have taken much of a prophet to have recognized that she was the lady that she had been. But what she had been, she was no longer. Her deep repentance had changed her into a new person.

Jesus read his thoughts and said, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”

“Tell it Rabbi,” he replied.

“Once upon a time, two men were in the debt of a money lender. The one owed him five hundred denarii, the other fifty. Neither of them was in a position to pay, so he made both of them happy by canceling their debts. Under these circumstances, which of them will be more generous in loving him?”

“The one, I suppose,” said Simon, “whom he made happy by canceling the greater amount.”

“Your judgment is correct,” Jesus replied. Then turning to the woman, he said to Simon, “You see this woman? I came into your house. You offered me no water for my feet (the ordinary courtesy). This woman has rained her tears upon my feet and wiped them dry with her hair. You gave me no kiss of welcome (the ordinary courtesy), from the time she entered this woman has not left off tenderly kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil (the ordinary courtesy), this woman has anointed my feet with perfume.” Thus Jesus compares the total lack of the ordinary courtesies which he received from the Pharisee, with the extraordinary marks of courtesy he received from this woman.

In other words, Jesus is comparing her response to her forgiveness with the Pharisee’s response to his forgiveness, and the conclusion is: “In consideration of this, I tell you, her sins, numerous as they are, are forgiven. You see, she has shown so much love.”

And then comes a remark loaded with heavy irony, “One, of course, who has but little forgiven shows but little love.”

This Pharisee is a perfect example of someone who has little self-knowledge, who does not recognize his own sinfulness, who is more or less well pleased with his virtues and with his service of God, and who is inclined to think that God owes him something. The result of that disposition is an incapacity to give oneself, an incapacity to love.

In this penitent woman, we have an example of someone who does know her own misery and wretchedness, and how sunk in sin she is, who makes no secret of the fact to herself and to god (and to everybody else for that matter), and who appeals to the love of Christ to save her.

She does not say, “Well, I owe you five hundred denarii and I’ll pay you back at the rate of five denarii a month on the installment plan.” Oh no! She just collapses at this feet and relies on a hundred percent on his mercy.

Imagine what she must have felt when Jesus turned to her and said, “Your sins are forgiven.” That is all she wanted to hear. She did not ask to be a saint, she did not ask to be a mystic, she did not ask to be anything. All she wanted, and wanted desperately, was to get rid of her sins. She contacted Christ on his weak side, because that is precisely the reason that he came down from heaven: “I have come to save that which was lost.” Not partially lost, not just what is in bad shape, but what is absolutely hopeless—shot!

In other words, he is prepared to build the new creation of grace on nothing, which is the way he made the old one. He does not ask for anything except the sincere acknowledgement of need, and hope in mercy.

She was thrilled when she heard his words. Since the words of the Lord accomplish what they signify, she was instantly forgiven.

The others started grumbling. Who cares what they thought? And she cared a lot less.

Jesus then said to her, “Your faith has saved you.”

Faith in what? Faith in his love. That is what saved her. She aimed her arrow straight and hit Jesus squarely on target, in the center of his heart. She opened for herself and for everybody else who understands her, who want to follow in her footsteps, a flood of mercy.

Thus the three women commemorated on the feast of St. Mary Magdalen are spiritually one. Each of the persons named in these instances was reduced, after the manner of the Canaanite women, to a slender thread of hope. But they hung on, when every human help had been taken away, to faith in his love.

We celebrate in their feast the moment of reward when faith and hope have achieved their work. This is the feast of those who have passed through humiliation and suffering to abiding union with Christ.

More information can be obtained by reading the book Crisis of Faith/Crisis of Love by Fr. Thomas Keating.  It is offered in our bookstore.