Fairy Tales

Cinderella goes to the ball because a fairy godmother cares about her and waves a magic wand.  The beast is revealed as a prince because Beauty has learned to love him.  The kiss of a princess transforms a frog; and Snow White is awakened from a death like sleep by the love of the king’s son.  Love overcomes wickedness, and its power transforms!   
 
These themes recur so often in children’s fairy tales, and in so many disguises.  Fairy tales are actually a kind of child’s parable, and they speak of important realities.  Children know instinctively that love makes you feel safe and valued.  Those who have never known love, or who are deprived of it, whether old or young, find it hard to flourish.  So often a feeling of worthlessness is attendant on being unloved, and the outcasts come to believe that they actually deserve to be so.   
 
In this weekend’s Gospel we meet the redeeming, transforming power of the love of Jesus; and it was not for an important person, but for a woman who was despised and cast out by respectable society.  Yet Jesus understood and welcomed her and, by so doing, transformed her into someone of great worth.   
 
Simon the Pharisee had invited Jesus to dine with him.  Though he called Jesus Rabbi and offered him some degree of respect, he had not received Jesus with a kiss, nor washed his feet, nor anointed his head with oils.  All of these actions would have signified warmth of friendship, but they were not given.  The woman came off of the streets and her tears did what Simon had failed to do, washed the dust from the feet of Jesus.  In a spontaneous gesture and against all custom, the woman let down her hair and wiped away the tears.  She anointed, not his head, but his feet with oils, and in humility kissed them.  In letting her touch him, and in upholding her in what she did, Jesus entered into public scorn with the poor woman.  Jesus took to himself the disapproval, and stood with her against the condemnation of the others who were there, and he shared it with her.  Through her love for him, Jesus let the woman enter his love, and in respecting her he gave her back her own self-respect.   
 
Where would we have been in that scenario?  Would we have sided with Simon and said, “He really should know better.  This woman has only herself to blame.  We do not want to be seen with people like that!”  Would we have wanted to show compassion, but would we have been too conscious of, perhaps afraid of, the disapproval of those around us?  Would we have wanted to show love and understanding as Jesus did, and give back to the woman a sense of being forgiven and accepted?   
 
These are indeed so many questions about an event in the past, but each of them are translatable into our own world, into our own day to day living.    We all make judgments that dictate our actions.  We all categorize and label and cease to see the individual.  It is so easy to blame others for their misfortunes, for in doing so we allow ourselves to escape from the responsibility of acting on their behalf.  However, if we can remember that we are loved and forgiven and infinitely valued, then we in turn can offer love and forgiveness to those in our world who truly need it!