Daily Catholic Lectio
Thu, 17 Sep 2026
XXIV Week in Ordinary Time
1 Cor 15:1-11. Lk 7:36-50
Two Types of Love
In today’s Gospel, two persons offer hospitality to Jesus. A Pharisee invites Jesus to his house and receives Him as a teacher and perhaps as a prophet. A woman enters the house and pours perfume on the feet of Jesus. Jesus points out that something is lacking in the hospitality of the Pharisee, while He praises the love shown by the woman.
The Pharisee’s hospitality is mainly external. Inviting a respected teacher to one’s house was considered an honourable act. He receives Jesus into his home, but he also carries certain prejudices about Him. When he sees the woman touching Jesus, he begins to judge: “If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman this is.” His hospitality has limits. He receives Jesus, but he also measures Him.
The woman’s love is different. She does not calculate. She does not protect her social image. She empties herself before Jesus. She wets His feet with her tears, wipes them with her hair, kisses them, and pours perfume on them. Her love is not concerned about appearance. It comes from an inner change.
Jesus then tells the story of two debtors. One owes more, the other less. Both debts are cancelled. Jesus asks: “Which of them will love him more?” The answer is clear: the one who has been forgiven more. Jesus then says, “Her many sins have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love.”
Here we see two types of love.
The Pharisee’s love is measured. The woman’s love is abundant. The Pharisee calculates what is necessary. The woman gives everything she has.
The Pharisee receives Jesus as a teacher and prophet. The woman receives Him with the surrender that belongs to God. The Pharisee justifies himself and judges the woman. The woman does not justify herself. She empties herself in the presence of Jesus.
The Pharisee’s hospitality is connected with outward social recognition. The woman’s hospitality comes from inward conversion. One is concerned about how things appear. The other is concerned about what is happening in the heart.
Jesus does not say that the woman loves much in order to earn forgiveness. Her great love reveals that she has experienced forgiveness. Forgiveness received becomes love given. The one who knows that much has been forgiven cannot remain calculating before God.
At the end, Jesus says to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” This peace becomes an important sign. If we come to God and leave with a heart filled with peace, our encounter has changed us. But a heart that continues to judge itself and others loses peace.
The Pharisee remains inside the house, but his heart is restless. The woman leaves the house, but she leaves in peace.
In today’s first reading, Paul reminds the Corinthians of the Gospel he preached to them: Christ died for our sins, was buried, and was raised. Paul also remembers his own unworthiness. He calls himself “the least of the apostles” because he persecuted the Church of God. Yet he says, “By the grace of God I am what I am.”
Paul’s ministry comes from the same experience we see in the woman. He has received grace, and therefore he gives himself to the Gospel. His work, sacrifice, and self-giving flow from what God has first done for him.
Christian love begins here. We do not love God in order to force Him to love us. We love because we have already been loved. We do not forgive in order to purchase forgiveness. We forgive because we have received forgiveness. We do not give ourselves in order to earn grace. We give ourselves because grace has already reached us.
Fr. Yesu Karunanidhi
Archdiocese of Madurai
A Yesni Prays Initiative
Yesu Karunanidhi 
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