Thursday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time (opt. Hildegard of Bingen / Robert Bellarmine)

Paul hands on the resurrection creed exactly as he received it, naming his own past persecution of the Church alongside his current apostleship without softening either. The Gospel shows a woman with a public reputation loving extravagantly because she knows how much she has been forgiven, set against a respectable host who offers nothing because he believes he needs nothing forgiven. Today asks what a life actually produces once status stops being the measure.

Paul reminds the Corinthians of the Gospel he handed on to them exactly as he received it - that Christ died, was buried, was raised on the third day, and appeared to Cephas, to the Twelve, to more than five hundred at once, and finally to Paul himself, whom he calls the least of the apostles because he once persecuted the Church. He attributes everything since to the grace of God rather than to his own merit. Psalm 118 responds with thanksgiving for the Lord's enduring mercy and his saving right hand. In the Gospel, a sinful woman anoints Jesus's feet with tears and ointment at a Pharisee's table. Jesus tells a parable of two debtors, one owing much and one little, both forgiven, and asks which will love the creditor more. He then contrasts the woman's lavish attention with Simon's neglect of ordinary hospitality, concluding that she has shown great love because she has been forgiven much, while the one forgiven little loves little.

Lord Jesus, you forgive debts we could never repay: Lord, have mercy. Christ Jesus, you welcome the love of those the respectable overlook: Christ, have mercy. Lord Jesus, by your grace we are what we are: Lord, have mercy.

Introduction: Father, you forgive freely and ask only that we love as freely as we have been forgiven. Trusting in your mercy, we bring you our needs:

1. For the Church, that she would hand on the faith received without adding to it or subtracting from it; we pray to the Lord.
2. For our Holy Father, our bishop, and all who teach the faith, that they would form the humble and the unlettered as carefully as the learned; we pray to the Lord.
3. For all who have been reduced to a label by people unwilling to see them fully; we pray to the Lord.
4. For everyone in this parish still carrying private shame for something already forgiven; we pray to the Lord.
5. For all continuing the Ember fast this week, that it would open room for the kind of love shown in today's Gospel; we pray to the Lord.
6. For all who have died, especially [name], that the grace which was not ineffective in Paul's life would bring them to glory; we pray to the Lord.

Concluding prayer: Father, you forgave a woman much and she loved much in return. Receive the prayers of your people, and let whatever has been forgiven us become the source of how we love others. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.