The inner sanctuary

We really need to listen with our hearts wide open to the message conveyed in today's readings. They tell three different stories, all with the same ending: God's sanctuary is in our heart, as in the case of King David, the Apostle Paul, and the woman in the Gospel about whom much is said but to whom the Gospel doesn't even give a name. No name is given to her because she could be each and every one of us. So it's just fill in the blanks.

The story of this woman in Luke's Gospel is worth reading as a drama between two parts of ourselves, between the recklessness of love and a more rational way of thinking. We can be either on the side of this woman, who joined at table at the Pharisee's house, or on the side of Simon the Pharisee who was completely ignorant of what was really happening in his own house.

On the one hand, the woman's intimacy with Jesus is spontaneous, personal and regardless of anything else, concerned only to respond to Jesus' love. On the other hand, is the reaction of the socially aware Pharisee, judicious, constantly judging things by moral standards but unable to connect with Jesus in any real way.

Jesus was there at table, in the presence of both of them. But, whereas this woman was touched by Jesus's love and hence experienced inner healing and freedom, Simon remained locked in his rigidity, judgmental and exclusive in attitude.

This story is still our story. We still pretend to stand on the judgment seat to decide who can share of God's love and mercy and who not. Probably we still need to come to terms with the God we believe in: that He is the God of the impossible.

He is also the God of miracles, not exactly the type of miracles we've been discussing lately. The issue with our God is that we really need to enter His frame of mind, rather than pretend to make Him enter ours.

This then has repercussions also on the way we envisage the Church. Many still think of the Church in terms of a club with clear-cut rules to be observed. Today, we read also of Paul's personal experience:

"We had to become believers in Christ Jesus no less than you had, and now we hold that faith in Christ, rather than fidelity to the law, is what justifies us." From one who staunchly believed to possess the truth and had no other way to behave than to fanatically and violently impose that on others, Paul was himself touched by the truth of life that makes us free.

From one who persecuted Christ's Church, Paul experienced deep intimacy with Jesus as Lord: "I live now not with my own life but with the life of Christ who lives in me."

Same story with David in the first reading. David wanted to build a house for God, but instead it was God who actually built a home for David. He acknowledges in front of the prophet:

"I have sinned against the Lord", and this paved the way for God to build His inner sanctuary in David's heart. There is always the outer and the inner sanctuary. One does not necessarily lead to the other.

But it is our inner sanctuary that first and foremost provides a suitable dwelling place for the Lord, as in the cases of David, Paul and this woman.

Righteousness is never the automatic outcome of obedience to the law. Even if at times we still seem to believe in the 'vending machine' type of Christianity. But Christianity is not a doctrine; it is a person, Jesus Christ.

The Lord who invites us all to an inward pilgrimage that may bring us to that sacred space within us where we can truly understand the meaning of words like: "The one to whom little is forgiven, loves little."