Daily Gospel Reflection
Join the Notre Dame family of faith. Receive God’s Word and a unique reflection in your inbox each day.
September 18, 2025
A certain Pharisee invited Jesus to dine with him,
and he entered the Pharisee’s house and reclined at table.
Now there was a sinful woman in the city
who learned that he was at table in the house of the Pharisee.
Bringing an alabaster flask of ointment,
she stood behind him at his feet weeping
and began to bathe his feet with her tears.
Then she wiped them with her hair,
kissed them, and anointed them with the ointment.
When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this he said to himself,
“If this man were a prophet,
he would know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him,
that she is a sinner.”
Jesus said to him in reply,
“Simon, I have something to say to you.”
“Tell me, teacher,” he said.
“Two people were in debt to a certain creditor;
one owed five hundred days’ wages and the other owed fifty.
Since they were unable to repay the debt, he forgave it for both.
Which of them will love him more?”
Simon said in reply,
“The one, I suppose, whose larger debt was forgiven.”
He said to him, “You have judged rightly.”
Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon,
“Do you see this woman?
When I entered your house, you did not give me water for my feet,
but she has bathed them with her tears
and wiped them with her hair.
You did not give me a kiss,
but she has not ceased kissing my feet since the time I entered.
You did not anoint my head with oil,
but she anointed my feet with ointment.
So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven;
hence, she has shown great love.
But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.”
He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
The others at table said to themselves,
“Who is this who even forgives sins?”
But he said to the woman,
“Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
“Did you hear the news about Father Dan?”
“Wait, what?” My heart dropped. I was out of town, out of the loop, and on the phone with my friend Susan.
“He’s leaving St. John’s,” Susan said. “Going to teach at a seminary in Minnesota.”
I was stunned. My confessor of two years, the beloved cornerstone of the parish, is leaving? Father Dan was the holiest priest I had ever met—a spiritual father to all. Reverent, firm when needed, wise beyond his years. The man who had seen me at my worst and brought me to Jesus.
When I first met Father Dan, a terrible heartbreak had me spiraling down a path of sin and self-destruction. Over and over, I returned to him to confess a pattern of increasingly serious sins. I couldn’t break free, and I no longer recognized the person I had become. I kept waiting for Father Dan to say that my sins were too much, that I was beyond redemption. Instead, in his gentle voice, he told me, “God rejoices at the opportunity to forgive you. God is not disgusted by you.”
I can imagine Jesus saying the same thing to the woman who bathed his feet in tears. “I’m not disgusted by you.” Jesus didn’t see a sinful woman before him. He saw a woman who yearned so ardently for his love and mercy that she simply had to burst into the Pharisee’s house to see her Savior. She believed that Jesus would take her as she was. I admire her trust so much.
The parish held a going-away party for Father Dan, and I couldn’t be there. Father Dan left my town. Jesus left the sinful—no, faithful—woman’s town. And long after, she and I remain awestruck at the great gift of mercy that we can never repay.
Prayer
Accept the desire of our hearts, O Lord, our God, to lavish care and concern on the weary and suffering members of your body this day. May we anoint them with a compassion that wells up from hearts made joyful by the release you have gained for us from debts and trespasses. We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Saint of the Day
After suffering a terrible childhood, St. Joseph of Cupertino became one of the most miracle-prone saints in the Church—he was often totally consumed by prayerful rapture and was even observed levitating.
He was born 1603 in Cupertino, Italy to poor parents. His father was a carpenter, but was unable to make ends meet and had to put the family house up for sale just as his wife came to term—she bore Joseph in a shed behind the house.
Joseph’s father died when he was young, and his widowed mother abused him. Joseph’s development suffered—he had a hot temper, and became absent-minded. Village people knew him as “the gaper” around town because he would wander about aimlessly with his mouth open. One thing did consume his attention: he threw himself into devotional practices and grew in his faith.
When he reached maturity, he was apprenticed to a shoemaker, but failed at that position. He applied to several monasteries, but was refused. The Capuchin order accepted him on a trial basis as a lay brother, but he was inept and clumsy—he would drop whole piles of dishes, or forgot his duties, or could not be trusted with even minor responsibilities.
He returned home in a great depression. His mother was not happy to see him, and she pleaded with her brother, who was a Franciscan monk, to have him accepted to his monastery as a servant. He was taken in and given work cleaning out the stables.
The consistent work and community life seemed to suit Joseph, and he became more trustworthy and capable. He had a certain humility and sweetness, and was diligent in his prayer and devotional life—within a few years, he was accepted as a full brother in the community.
Though he struggled in his studies, and had nothing to offer in the way of eloquence, he was ordained a priest in 1628. His devotional life increased, and he took on rigorous fasting and disciplines.
After his ordination, Joseph’s life came in tune with the divine in a new and radical way. He began to experience ecstasies and visions and was a worker of miracles—more than nearly any other saint! He frequently fell into contemplative ecstasy, and could not be awakened with pinches or blows. He was friends to animals in a way that surpassed even St. Francis of Assisi. During Mass or prayer, he would often be lifted from his feet—he was observed levitating more than 70 times.
The experience of levitation is a physical expression of the deep prayer that raises the heart and mind to God. In Joseph’s case, a number of his levitations were well-documented.
In one instance, the Spanish ambassador visited Joseph’s monastery and visited Joseph in his cell. The ambassador told his wife that he had met “another St. Francis,” and she wanted to meet Joseph herself. She asked to meet him in the church, but Joseph, knowing his susceptibility to fall into rapture at even the sight of religious imagery, realized that he might not be able to speak with her.
When he entered the church, Joseph’s eyes fell on an image of Mary, and he was transported by ecstatic prayer and rose more than ten feet off the ground and flew over the heads of those present to the statue of Mary. After praying there, he flew back to the doors of the church and returned to his cell. This story was captured in depositions from eyewitnesses that were gathered for Joseph’s cause for canonization.
Joseph was moved to a monastery in Assisi, and—for a time—was treated severely by his superiors, who thought him a hypocrite or suspected he was pretending. During his time in Assisi he was visited by many prominent religious and political figures who heard of his holy miracles and took up correspondences with notable figures of his day.
“Pray,” he told everyone, “Pray. If you are troubled by dryness or distractions, simply say the Our Father. Then you make both vocal and mental prayer.”
The marvels that accompanied Joseph became a distraction to both the monastery and to others who came seeking novelty, so he was not allowed to offer Mass or pray in public, or even to eat his meals with his brothers. His order eventually isolated him and he had little contact with other members of his community.
He consented to isolation, and used solitude to commune with God on an even deeper level. He fell ill at the age of 60 and died on this date in 1663 at a Franciscan monastery in Osimo. His relics rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica.
St. Joseph of Cupertino, the levitating saint, pray for us!
Image Credit: Our featured image of St. Joseph of Cupertino is available for use under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. Last accessed April 3, 2025 on Wikimedia Commons.
_MET_DP-12357-001.jpg){kind=link}