JULY XXII.
ST. MARY MAGDALEN.
The illustrious penitent woman mentioned by St. Luke,[244] was, by her perfect conversion, an encouraging example and model of penitence to all succeeding ages.She is called the Sinner,[245] to express her pre-eminence in guilt. This epithet seems to imply that she led a lewd and disorderly life. The scandal of her debaucheries had rendered her name infamous throughout the whole city. Naim, Tiberias, or some neighboring place in Galilee, seems to have been the chief theatre of her disorders, at least at the time of her conversion. They took their rise from small beginnings; for no one becomes a great proficient in vice all at once. The fences of virtue are weakened by degrees before they are entirely broken down.
The steps by which young persons, like this sinner, are led into evil courses, are pointed out to us by our Divine Redeemer in the parable of the prodigal son. The source of all his misfortunes is a love of independence and of his own will. He is full of his own wisdom, and of a certain self-sufficiency; is an enemy to advice, the means to find out truth and to discover dangers. All who contradict his passions, or tell him the truth, are odious to him; the counsels of tender parents he calls interested; those of God’s anointed too severe and scrupulous; those of the old and experienced, cowardly and mean-spirited. Young persons, above all others, are in an age in which the devil prepares innumerable snares, the world lays many stratagems, and passions easily eclipse reason; and it behoves them infinitely to be strongly persuaded that their safety consists altogether in most sincere dispositions of humility, obedience, and docility. Tractableness and dutifulness towards superiors is the most essential virtue of that age, next to the obligation of religion, which we owe to God. Those companions, whose discourse and behavior tend to inspire a contempt of parents and other superiors, are of all pests the most dangerous to youth.
The prodigal son, blinded by his passions, thought himself prudent and strong enough to be his own governor and master, and flattered himself that his love of liberty and pleasure was not very criminal or unjust; but from this root all vices have sprouted up, and are not to be restrained by him who opens to them such a door by shaking off the happy yoke of subjection, which is the divine ordinance. Such is the strange disorder of that mischievous passion, that though the prodigal son lived in dignity and plenty, and enjoyed all temporal blessings and all the comforts of life without feeling its troubles or knowing its miseries, yet he was not content. His subjection to a good father was true freedom; he was the object of all his parent’s cares, and he reaped the fruit of all his labors. But so distempered was his soul, that the constraint of this tender guardian’s watchful eye seemed to embitter all his pleasures, and such an obedience appeared to him an insupportable burden and slavery, which therefore he would shake off to have no other law but his own will. This was his capital enemy, though he would not be so persuaded; and by indulging it he fostered a young tiger in his own bosom, which soon grew too strong for him and tore him to pieces. We are astonished at the quick progress which the passions make when once the bridle is let loose. The prodigal youth, seeing himself possessed of that dangerous liberty which he had so passionately desired, full of false joy at the prospect of imaginary happiness, went into a foreign country, to be at a greater distance from all troublesome advisers. His passions being so far yielded to, had no longer any bounds, and he denied his heart nothing of its irregular desires, being no longer master of himself. Unthinking and blinded he soon squandered away his fortune, without keeping any accounts, or knowing how it was spent; he was surprised to find his hands empty, and himself starving, and that he had not yet found those enjoyments which he had promised himself; instead of which he had met with nothing but shadows and miseries. Nevertheless, cleaving still to so treacherous a world, and yet entertaining desperate foolish hopes of finding happiness in it, he went on in the pursuit of his passions; and losing himself daily more and more in the mazes of sin, he was at length reduced to have no other company but that of the most filthy of beasts, and almost to perish with hunger at the heels of the hogs which he was condemned to serve and fatten.
This is a true picture of the sinner who has thrown off the holy yoke of God, and has enslaved himself to his passions. How earnestly ought every Christian to pray that God may always so strengthen his resolution with his grace, that he may never receive any other than his sweet and holy law? What completes the misfortune of the habitual sinner is, that few who have fallen into that gulf ever sincerely rise again. The very afflictions which converted the prodigal son throw thousands into despair. God’s powerful graces are weakened after having been long contemned; and habits grow stronger than reason. When the poison of sin has sunk deep into the heart, it is not expelled by an ordinary grace.Of such a sinner that curse is pronounced, that even in his old age, if he ever arrive at it, his bones shall be filled with the vices of his youth, and they shall descend with him into the grave, and shall sleep with him in the dust.[246] Christ indeed came from heaven to save all such; in his tender compassion for their miseries he invites them to return to him, and for their encouragement has shown a remarkable example of his mercy in our saint. Having considered in the image of the prodigal son, the unhappy steps by which she fell, we shall, with greater edification, take a view of the circumstances which have given so great a lustre to her repentance.
Jesus, not long after he had raised to life the son of a widow at Naim, a town in Galilee, was invited to dinner by a certain Pharisee called Simon, who seems to have lived in the same town, or some neighboring city, as Calmet shows. Our Lord was pleased to accept his invitation, chiefly that he might confound the pride of the Pharisees by manifesting the power of his grace in the wonderful conversion of this abandoned sinner. His bowels had yearned over her spiritual miseries, and he spread upon her soul a beam of his divine light which penetrated her understanding and her heart so effectually, that, listening to the interior voice of his grace, she saw the abominable filth and miseries in which she was plunged, was filled with confusion and horror, and conceived the most sincere detestation of her ingratitude and baseness. Our Lord went to the banquet in great joy to wait for this soul, which he himself had secretly wounded with his holy love, and which he was pleased to draw to him in the midst of a great assembly, that by her public repentance she might repair the scandal she had given, and he might give to all succeeding ages an illustrious instance of his mercy towards all repenting sinners. She began her conversion by entering into herself. As her fall was owing to inconsideration, so doubtless her first step towards repentance was serious reflection on the misery of her present condition, the happiness she had forfeited, and the punishment she was to expect. From these considerations she raised her thoughts to others higher and more noble, those of divine love, reflecting who He is whom she had so grievously offended, and how excessive and incomprehensible his goodness is, which she had so long and so basely slighted. This motive of love, to which Christ ascribed her conversion, drew from her eyes a torrent of tears, and made her cry out with the prodigal son, that she had sinned against heaven. That model of true penitents forgot his corporeal miseries and all other circumstances of his fall, being full of this reflection alone, how he could be capable of offending so good a parent. He acknowledged himself unworthy to be again called a child; yet he deferred not a moment to restore his heart to him to whom he owed it, and, confiding in his indulgence, threw himself upon his mercy, hoping by his goodness to be admitted among his hired servants.
In the like dispositions does our penitent raise her heart to God. She hearkens not to the suggestions of worldly prudence which might seem to require some time for deliberation, for settling her concerns, or for taking proper measures about her conversion itself; the least delay appears to her a new crime, a fresh aggravation of her misfortune. She was informed that our Divine Redeemer was at table in the house of the Pharisee. She did not so much as think of the disgrace to which she exposed herself by appearing before a numerous and honorable assembly, of the reproaches and disdain she was to expect from the Pharisee, or the fear of moving Christ himself to indignation by an unseasonable importunate address. One moment’s delay in seeking her physician seemed too much, because her heart was now wounded with divine love. Sinners who, in returning to God, think too nicely that they have temporal interests to provide for, friends to please, and opportunities to wait for, are far from the dispositions of this happy penitent. She found mercy because she sought it before all things. Had she dallied with grace, it would have been justly withdrawn; had she been for compounding with her passions, they would have again enslaved her more strongly than ever. She found all difficulties vanish in a moment, because her conversion was sincere and perfect; by one steady resolution the work is done. What further deliberation can one that has sinned require than that the gate of mercy is yet open to him? Let him at all rates make haste to find it, though for this he should sacrifice every thing else. So insupportable to this holy penitent was the stench of her own filth, and the load of her guilt, that she could not defer the remedy an hour longer to wait for a better opportunity, or to inquire if our Lord was at leisure to hear her; and a firm confidence in his boundless mercy was her encouragement, and her strong assurance that he would not reject her tears.
When the prodigal son said to himself, I will arise, and will go to my Father, we might have asked him, says St. Peter Chrysologus, what he trusted to for his pardon? upon what he grounded his confidence? upon what hope or assurance he presumed to appear in the presence of him whom he had so heinously offended? His answer would have been, “This is the assured ground of my confidence, that he is my Father. I have forfeited all title to the name or rank of his son; but he hath not lost the quality or affection of a parent. I want no stranger to intercede with a father. The tender affection of his own breast pleads powerfully within him, and is sure to incline him in my favor.His paternal bowels are moved, and yearn to restore to a son by pardon that life which he formerly gave him by birth.”[247] In like sentiments this penitent woman seeks her Almighty Physician, professing herself altogether undeserving and unworthy of mercy, and therefore alleges nothing on her side to recommend her to his compassion, except only that she was the work of his hands, though an unnatural and rebellious child, in whom that title was only a grievous exaggeration of her guilt; but she confidently appeals to his infinite goodness and mercy, and begs that for his own sake he will save her, in whom he still discovers, though frightfully disfigured, the traces of his divine image which his own omnipotent hand had formed, and which it is in his power easily to repair and perfect.
In these dispositions she bolted into the chamber where Jesus was at dinner with the Pharisee, and, regardless of what others thought or said of her past life or of her present boldness,[248] she made up to her Redeemer and Physician. She durst not appear before his face, and therefore went behind him; and the nearer she approached his sacred person streams gushed more abundantly from her eyes. She reflected how basely she had defiled and sought to destroy her own soul, and how impiously she had robbed Christ of many other souls whilst he was come from heaven, and was ready to sacrifice himself on the cross for her and them; and at this and other like considerations she was not able to moderate her grief. The inward confusion she felt at the sight of her sins and baseness made her despise all the confusion which she could receive before men, or rather rejoice in it to meet that contempt which she acknowledged herself most justly to deserve from all creatures. Attentive only on Christ, from whom she sought her health and salvation, standing at his feet, she watered them with her tears, wiped them with her hair, most respectfully kissed them, and anointed them with rich perfumes and sweet-scented essences which she had brought in an alabaster box. She now defaces or consecrates to penance whatever had formerly been an instrument of sin; her eyes, which had been full of dangerous charms, are now converted into fountains of tears to cleanse the stains of her soul; and her hair, once dressed in tresses and curls to ensnare souls, now hangs loose and dishevelled, and serves for a towel to wipe our Lord’s feet, which she kisses with her lips, and scents with her perfumes, formerly the incentives of vice. The penitent must consecrate his riches to Christ in the poor which are his feet; must employ his eyes in tears, and his lips in supplications for mercy, and must make all that serve to charity and mortification which before served self-love. These exterior offerings must be accompanied with the interior sacrifice of the heart, by humble confidence in the divine mercy, by lively faith and ardent love, with which the soul of a sinner approaches to Jesus, and is reconciled to him. Our holy penitent prepared as it were an altar at the feet of our Lord, on which she offered to him the true sacrifice of a contrite and humble heart. There losing the use of her speech whilst grief intercepted her words, she spoke only by her tears; but before Him to whom the secrets of her heart were open, these sighs, and this silence itself, was a louder cry than that of any words could have been. Thus she earnestly begged of God’s pure mercy, that pardon which she confessed herself most unworthy to obtain.