From a sermon by Saint Jean-Marie Baptiste Vianney:
Perhaps you will say to me: “I have done nothing but evil all my whole life. I am just a bad tree which cannot bring forth good fruit.”
My dear brethren, that can very well be, as I am going to show you. Change this tree, moisten it with different water, treat it with some other fertilizer, and you will see that it will bear good fruit, even though it has been bearing bad fruit up to the present.
If this tree, which is yourself, has been fruitful in pride, in avarice, in impurity, you can, with the grace of God, see to it that these fruits become abundant in humility, in charity, and in purity.… You have watered this tree with the foul water of your passions. Well, then, from now on, water it with the tears of repentance, of sorrow, and of love, and you will see that you will cease to be a bad tree and will become one which will bear fruit for life eternal.
To show you, my dear brethren, that this can happen, consider the admirable example furnished in the person of St. Mary Magdalen. Remember how, according to Jesus Christ Himself, she was a bad tree, and then how grace made her into a good tree which brought forth good fruit in abundance.
St. Luke tells us that she was a sinner and that she was well known as such in the whole city of Jerusalem. I recommend that you consider what significance those words, which came from the lips of Jesus Christ Himself, have for us.
Here was a young girl born with the strongest passions, extraordinary beauty, great wealth—that is to say, with that which not merely kindles the passions but which nourishes and feeds them continually. She was greatly attracted by the pleasures of the world, she had a very strong taste for fashion and a great desire to look beautiful, so that her thoughts and all her cares were employed towards that end.
A far from modest air proclaimed openly that her innocence would suffer a speedy shipwreck. Vain and frivolous, the object of admiration by worldlings, she sought all the more to please them, either with provocative glances fired by an impure heart or with her seductive ways and the self-indulgent air which she displayed so brazenly. All of this told a tale of a tree that could only bear plenty of bad fruit.
She received with incredible complaisance the gross glances of the worldlings. She accepted with much self-gratification the silly homage of men. She loved, with more than ordinary enjoyment, to move in the well-to-do circles of her day. Since she was of great beauty and possessed very considerable wealth, was young and graceful to behold, everyone had, it seemed, eyes and thought for her alone. Dances, spectacles, and the desire to attract and please everyone were all she cared about.
If she appeared among the faithful, in the places chosen for prayer, she did so quite eagerly, not to weep for her sins, as she should have been doing, but rather, to take her place there as the center of attraction that she usually was, to see and—even more—to be seen, and to be admired. Acting thus, it seemed as if she would like to contest with God Himself for men’s hearts and the honor which was due Him alone.
She went so far that she finished by becoming a subject of scandal throughout the whole city of Jerusalem. The assignations with the young men, the embraces, the far from modest conversations, the depravities to which she surrendered herself, ended by making her come to be looked upon as a young woman of very evil life. She finished by being avoided and despised by all those of any standing. She was called a sinful and scandalous woman by everyone in the city.
You will admit that here, indeed, was a bad tree. If you have gone as far as she did, there are few who have passed her up. Alas, my friends, what a crop of pride was not borne by that head dressed and ornamented with so much care! What fruits of depravity were not produced in that corrupt heart consumed by an impure fire! And so equally with all the other passions which dominated her. I think, my dear brethren, that it would be difficult to find a more evil tree.
Yet, my dear brethren, you shall see that, if we are willing to avail ourselves of the grace which is never lacking to us, any more than it was to Mary Magdalen, miserable though we may be, we can change our tree, which up to now has been bearing only bad fruit. We can make it bear good fruit if we will but make use of the grace which comes to our help. From being bad Christians, we can become good and bear fruit worthy of eternal life, as we shall see by the conversion of Mary Magdalen.
St. Jerome tells us that while Mary Magdalen was thus abandoned to all her passionate and undisciplined ways of living, the stories of so many miracles worked by our Saviour in curing the sick and raising the dead to life were filling all Judea with astonishment. Everyone was eager to see so extraordinary a man. Mary Magdalen, happily for herself, was one of this member.
The first words which she heard falling from the lips of our Saviour were those of the Parables of the Prodigal Son and of the Good Shepherd. She recognized herself exactly in this young man and she also recognized our Saviour as the Good Shepherd. The shafts of grace were so lively and so penetrating that she could not help but feel their effects.
As the words continued, she felt herself moved to tears. The many miracles that she herself had seen and heard filled her with astonishment, and grace completed the work of changing her, of converting her from a really bad tree into a wonderfully good tree which would bring forth excellent fruit.
But what completed the work of detaching her from herself and from sin, the work of breaking through all that held her to these, was the great generosity of God towards sinners. Ah, my dear brethren, how powerful grace is when it finds a heart well disposed!
Look at her who began by neither thinking nor acting, but grace pursued her, remorse of conscience tormented her, she felt her heart break with sorrow for her sins. Her eyes, which previously had been so bright with the fire of impurity, which she knew so well how to kindle in the hearts of others, began to shed bitter tears. Since her heart had first tasted the pleasures of the world, she wished it to be the first to feel all the regret for having done evil.
From that time, the world of society, which hitherto had held all her pleasure and happiness, could now only weary and disgust her more and more. She discovered that her only happiness lay in being separated from the world and in retirement where she could reflect and shed tears freely. The more she thought upon the kind of life she had been leading up to then, the outrages she had committed against God, and the number of souls she had lost by her bad life, the more acutely was her heart pierced by sorrow. Such self-love, such proud self-gratification as she had taken in her great beauty, all that worldly homage which had so flattered her—all that now was nothing more to her than a senseless vanity and a kind of idolatry.
That vulgar luxury, the worldly amusements which she had always looked upon as the privileges of her age and of her sex, were now in her eyes only a pagan way of living and a real apostasy of her religion. Those passionate sentiments, those indecent liberties, those tender attachments, previously so dear to her heart, and all those mysteries of iniquity, now seemed but crimes and abominations. She realized, as she wept freely and abundantly, that if God had graced her with so many gifts, He had done so but to make her more pleasing to Him. She was therefore the more intensely ashamed of her ingratitude and rebellion.
During these struggles with herself, she learned that a distinguished Pharisee was enjoying the good fortune of entertaining our Saviour at his house. She recalled all that she had heard our Lord saying. Yes, she said to herself, I can no longer doubt but that this is the good and charitable Shepherd and that I am but the lost sheep. Ah, she cried, it was I that He meant when He spoke of that prodigal son. So I will rise up and I will go to find Him!
Indeed, unable to contain herself, she started up at once, spurning all her finery and her vanities. She ran, or, rather, the grace with which her heart was already on fire hurried her along. Casting aside all human respect, she entered into the banqueting hall with a downcast air, her hair, previously so beautifully dressed and curled, now quite disheveled, her eyes lowered and bathed in tears, her face blushing and ashamed. She threw herself at the feet of the Saviour, Who was at the table.
“Ah, Magdalen, Magdalen!” cries a Father of the Church, “What are you doing and what have you become? Where are all those pleasures, that vanity and that worldly love?” No, no, my dear brethren, here no longer is Magdalen the sinner, but Magdalen the penitent and the faithful lover of our Lord.
Yes, my dear brethren, it was at this moment that everything changed within her. If she had lost so many souls by a life which had been so scandalous, she is now, by her penitent life, going to win even more than those she has lost. She has nothing of human respect left, she accuses herself publicly of her sins before a large assembly, she embraces the feet of our Saviour, bathes them with her tears, dries them with her hair.
No, no, my dear brethren, Magdalen is no longer Magdalen but a holy lover of God! “No, no, my brethren,” St. Augustine says to us, “in Magdalen there is no more vanity, no more pleasure loving, no more worldly love, all is holy and pure in her.”
“Yes, my dear brethren,” this great Saint tells us, “those exquisite perfumes which she had given entirely to luxury, that magnificent head of hair so carefully dressed and ornamented, those beautiful eyes animated with such a dangerous fire, all that is now purified in her tears.”
“Ah! my dear brethren,” he says to us, “who could tell us what passes in her heart? Everyone of those who were witnesses of this generous gesture turns it into ridicule, treats her as deranged, blames and condemns her, except Jesus Christ Himself, Who knows so well that it is His grace which has done all for her.”
He is so touched by it that He says nothing to her of her sins. But He takes a particular pleasure in praising her for the kindness she has done to Him, and that in front of all the assembled guests: “Go in peace,” He said to her tenderly, “thy sins are forgiven thee.”
Since your soul is as precious in God’s eyes as that of Mary Magdalen’s, you can be quite sure, my dear brethren, that grace will never be wanting to you to convert you and to help you to persevere.
Luke 7:36-50
One of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with him, and He went into the Pharisee’s house, and sat at table. And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that He was sitting at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind Him at His feet, weeping, she began to wet His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed His feet, and anointed them with the ointment.
Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw it, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, He would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner.”
And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.”
And he answered, “What is it, Teacher?”
“A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he forgave them both. Now which of them will love him more?”
Simon answered, “The one, I supposed, to whom he forgave more.”
And He said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then turning toward the woman He said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house, you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has wet My feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave Me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss My feet. You did not anoint My head with oil, but she has anointed My feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.”
And He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
Then those who were at table with Him began to say among themselves, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?”
And He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
