“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.”
—Luke 7:36-50
The righteous men refused to eat the apple—
their eyes were never opened to their sin.
They never got down in the mud to grapple
with all the filth that comes out from within.
But she has tasted, and she knows its flavor:
The skin was red and firm beneath her touch,
and it was sweet—the sweetest—so she savored,
and well she knows she is forgiven much.
Then why should she withhold the alabaster?
No, let her perfumed prayer like incense rise,
and let them stare, though none will dare to ask her
what is it draws this torrent from her eyes?
They sit at feast, yet they have tasted nothing
except their scorn to see her at his feet,
but she is sated with her Lord's anointing,
for here is something more than apples sweet
and only they who taste and they who hunger
will one day know the pleasure of that feast,
when he who came to seek them in the mud here
bows down himself to wash their dirty feet.
The Ointment of the Magdalene (Le parfum de Madeleine). James Tissot, c. 1900 – Online Collection of Brooklyn Museum; Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2007, 00.159.214_PS2.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10957535
Kate Bluett 