We don’t even know her name? Or if her life was not only defended but changed by her encounter with Jesus? There are no tears as she leaves.
I like to think that years later there will be. At odd moments during the day: when she looks at her children asleep in their beds; when she waves good-bye to her husband as he walks to work in the morning; when she kneads bread in the solitude of her kitchen.
A marriage she would have had...a family she never would have had...a life she never would have had- were it not for such a wonderful saviour. A saviour who stood up for her when others only wanted to stone her. A Saviour who stooped to pick her up and send her on her way, forgiven. Whose only stone was a stepping-stone, to lift people up. No, she didn’t take it as a “let-off”. She was in a sense punished by the “kiss” of Jesus. For genuine change comes only from self-inspection not by the judgmentalism of others.
Maybe she recalled somewhere the words of the prophet Isaiah she heard at synagogue “No need to recall the past, no need to think about what was done before. See, I am doing a new deed.” (First Reading). For saints have a past, sinners have a future.
(Comments to Tom at stmarysrcathlone@oceanfree.net )