Repentance is a personal act. It is something we often demand but an elicited apology is never of itself a guarantee of repentance.
The touching tale of a woman washing Jesus’s feet in repentance is very different. The woman in tomorrow’s Gospel is usually identified as Mary Magdalene but that is not clear from the text.
The Magdalene is named later in the list of female disciples but she is not identified as the woman in this story. Nor is she identified with the woman Jesus saved from being stoned for adultery. The tradition has always been to associate her with prostitution, although the scriptures do not record this claim.
Even if the claim were true, it is a sign of how collectively we do not accept an individual’s repentance. If Mary was the woman who washed Jesus’s feet, we have been remarkably slow to honour her repentance. We still refer to her “crime”, despite the fact that she made a humiliating act of genuine remorse. It also shows how selective our forgiveness can be. We can easily forgive the one who issues a statement stating that they unreservedly apologise to anybody who may in any way have affected by what happened, yet poor Magdalene will always be a whore. The sincerity of her remorse and repentance means nothing.
Very few people regret nothing. Those who claim they do are either lying or have majorly repressed consciences. There is something inside every one of us that informs us reliably when we have maltreated somebody else. Some can mute all sense of regret but, for the vast majority of us, it is a very real part of everyday life. It demands confession. This can be to a priest, a counsellor or, best of all, to the actual person we maltreated. Confession carries a great risk. What mercy has the foot-washer received? How scary is it to apologise in a society that demands apology but has spent 2,000 years refusing to forgive one of its best-known examples?
This attitude makes repentance more difficult. It discourages honesty and entraps people in a web of fearful deceit. It is risky to express true remorse in a society that cannot handle it with dignity. At its best it might get you off the hook; at its worst it will be your permanent judgment. It takes great personal courage to wash somebody’s feet in public as a voluntary atonement for sin. Only a few of us are strong enough to even consider this risk.
Yet, we are capable of forgiving and it is an incredibly liberating experience to forgive somebody. As humans we will always have residual memories of the wrong, yet we are perfectly capable of deciding to park something indefinitely, hoping that means forever. Parents, family and friends make this decision on a regular basis. Even forgiving people we already love is a liberating experience. More poignantly, the person who can forgive a great wrong against him or herself experiences far greater freedom than the one who is given revenge. Justice will always be subservient to mercy.
Twenty centuries of experiencing the joy that comes from our own experience of forgiveness has not prompted us to promote it. Repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation enrich our personal experience of life. Is there any reason why we cannot extend that to our society at large?
There is neither name nor crime attributed to the courageous woman in tomorrow’s Gospel. We added these later in a cruel denial of the value of mercy. We know that mercy is the best healer but seemingly cannot show it.