Christ Jesus has made me his own!
The setting for this Sunday’s Gospel is Jerusalem during the Feast of Tabernacles. Yom Kippur, the final opportunity to repent before the close of the year, has just ended. The scribes and Pharisees standing before Jesus are missing the opportunity for repentance, but the lone woman, crouched there, takes it eagerly.
Jesus is offering this chosen woman a way out of her wilderness (First Reading). Working marvels for her (Psalm), he is doing something new by mixing what the righteousness of the law requires with forgiveness and mercy. He saves her life and then offers her the drink of new spiritual life. She leaves filled with gladness.
St Paul also received this newness of life (Second Reading). He, like the woman, has been possessed by Christ and desires only to continue upward toward the prize. He counts all else as rubbish. For him, knowing Christ as Lord is all that matters.
We are Pilgrims of Hope in this Jubilee year. Let’s continue to move upward into Holy Week as Christ’s chosen, praying that we might be agents of his forgiveness and mercy in all the situations of our lives.
