And, behold, a woman in the city, who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat to eat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment,
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Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
Blessed is one who can anoint the feet of Christ even with oil. Simon had still not anointed him, but more blessed is she who anoints with ointment. The grace of many flowers gathered into a bouquet scatters different sweetness of fragrance. Perhaps none but the church alone can produce that ointment. The church has innumerable flowers of different fragrance. She fittingly assumes the likeness of a prostitute, because Christ also took upon himself the form of a sinner.
That woman had not yet entered communion with the Word, because she was still a sinner. She paid the Master honor with what she considered the most precious thing she had, her perfume. She wiped off the remainder of the perfume with the garland of her head, her hair. She poured out upon the Lord her tears of repentance. Therefore her sins were forgiven her. This is a symbol of the Lord’s teachings and of his sufferings. The anointing of his feet with sweetsmelling myrrh suggests the divine teaching whose good smell and fame has spread to the ends of the earth. “Their sound has gone forth to the ends of the earth.” Moreover, those anointed feet of the Lord (not to be too subtle) are the apostles. The sweet odor of the myrrh prefigures their reception of the Holy Spirit. I mean that the figure of the Lord’s feet is to be understood of the apostles, who journeyed about the whole world preaching the gospel.
And behold a woman in the city. Behold, a wonderful thing, and a wonderful example of penitence. A woman called Mary Magdalene. S. Luke 8:2. It is questioned whether this is the same woman who is mentioned by the two other Evangelists. S. Chrysostom thinks there were two; Origen, Theophylact, and Euthymius, three who thus anointed our Lord, and that each Evangelist wrote of a different person. S. Matthew 26:7; S. John 12:3.
But I hold that it was one and the same woman—Mary Magdalene, the sister of Martha and of Lazarus, who anointed our Lord, as we read in the Gospels, on two but not three occasions; and this is clear,—
1. Because this is the general interpretation of the Church, who in her Offices accepts what is here written by S. Luke as referring to the Magdalene alone.
2. Because S. John ( John 11:2) writes, "It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick," thus plainly alluding to this passage of S. L...
A woman in the city, who was a sinner. Some say she had only been of a vain airy carriage; one that loved to be admired for her beauty and wit; but the common exposition and more conformable to the text, is, that she had been of a lewd, debauched life and conversation. (Witham)
Mary Magdalene.
“And behold,” it says, “a woman in the town who was a sinner.” Who is this woman? Beyond any doubt, she is the church…. She heard that Christ had come to the house of the Pharisee, that is, to the synagogue. She heard that there, that is, at the Jewish Passover, he had instituted the mysteries of his passion, disclosed the sacrament of his body and blood, and revealed the secret of our redemption. She ignored the scribes like contemptible doorkeepers. “Woe to you lawyers! You who have taken away the key of knowledge.” She broke open the doors of quarrels and despised the very superiority of the Pharisaical group. Ardent, panting and perspiring, she made her way to the large inner chamber of the banquet of the law. There she learned that Christ was betrayed amid sweet cups and a banquet of love.
With her hands of good works, she holds the feet of those who preach his kingdom. She washes them with tears of charity, kisses them with praising lips, and pours out the whole ointment of mercy, until he will turn her. This means that he will come back to her and say to Simon, to the Pharisees, to those who deny, to the nation of the Jews, “I came into your house. You gave me no water for my feet.” When will he speak these words? He will speak them when he will come in the majesty of his Father and separate the righteous from the unrighteous like a shepherd who separates the sheep from the goats. He will say, “I was hungry, and you did not give me to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink. I was a stranger, and you did not take me in.” This is equivalent to saying, “But this woman, while she was bathing my feet, anointing them and kissing them, did to the servants what you did not do for the Master.” She did for the feet what you refused to the Head. She expended upon the lowlie...
