A Jesuit Catholic University
in Omaha, Nebraska, since 1878

First Corinthians 15:1-11 Psalms 118:1-2, 16-17, 28 Luke 7:36-50

Weekly Guide for Daily Prayer The Daily Reflections

The amazing thing about scripture is the different situations to which it can be applied. We can, of course, use the words of Christ to help build our religious lives. But we must realize our secular lives are not truly secular – we do not have one secular life, completely separate and void of God and scripture, and one religious life reserved for meditation and reflection on Sundays and days of obligation. Rather, we have one life that is a wonderful combination of the two. God is truly everywhere we go. We cannot separate the Gospel from our daily lives: the gospel is our guide to living our daily, “secular” lives in His image.

So, we can read the Gospel today and think of how Jesus is telling us to be forgiving people. I’m sure you have heard homily after homily about the value of forgiveness. As disciples, we have all embraced the core value of forgiveness one way or another. If you are like me, forgiveness can often be one of the most difficult values to live out. But we have all heard this message before. And we all continue to work on the virtue of forgiveness in our daily lives.

However, daily life is rarely filled with events that require a true struggle for forgiveness. We run into major events in which we struggle every couple of weeks, maybe. It isn’t every day that our boss screams at us at work, a significant other breaks our heart, a stranger commits some heinous crime, or a close friend violates his or her foundation of trust. One thing we do everyday, however, is interact with people.

Perhaps another message in today’s Gospel helps us in our interactions with regular people in daily life. Do we want to be the host or do we want to be the sinner? The host did not offer to wash the feet of Christ. The sinner washed his feet with her own tears.

I think this piece of scripture shows us that there isn’t a “regular” person. We aren’t all equals. To borrow a political term, we exist in a state of equity, not equality. We have all had different experiences, different relationships, and different outcomes. The best thing we can do for a person is celebrate their individuality – we are all people, but we have very different experiences. Treating other strangers as they are all the same person – someone you do not know – is not what we are supposed to do. A simple smile, a polite “how are you today?” or even a helping hand can help build your connection with strangers.

Life isn’t about the number of hours we spend in the library, at work, in front of the TV, or in bed. We were put on this earth as one of six billion. There are six billion other people, six billion other stories, six billion other experiences out there. By giving each person the same cold shoulder stranger, we deny ourselves the opportunity to make another connection or relationship. We need to embody the spirit of the sinner in this passage: everyone is special. Let us not deny ourselves the opportunity to share our lives with others. Let us each smile at someone today.