The Memorial of Saint Hildegard of Bingen
Now I declare to you, brothers, the Good News which I preached to you, which also you received, in which you also stand, By which also you are saved, if you hold firmly the word which I preached to you — unless you believed in vain.
For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, That he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, And that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers at once, most of whom remain until now, but some have also fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, And last of all, as to the child born at the wrong time, he appeared to me also. For I am the least of the apostles, who is not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the assembly of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am. His grace which was given to me was not futile, but I worked more than all of them; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Whether then it is I or they, so we preach, and so you believed.
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, For his loving kindness endures forever. Let Israel now say That his loving kindness endures forever.
The right hand of the Lord is exalted! The right hand of the Lord does valiantly!" I will not die, but live, And declare the Lord's works.
You are my God, and I will give thanks to you. You are my God, I will exalt you.
One of the Pharisees invited him to eat with him. He entered into the Pharisee's house and sat at the table. Behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that he was reclining in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. Standing behind at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and she wiped them with the hair of her head, kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, "This man, if he were a prophet, would have perceived who and what kind of woman this is who touches him, that she is a sinner."
Jesus answered him, "Simon, I have something to tell you."
He said, "Teacher, say on."
"A certain lender had two debtors. The one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they couldn't pay, he forgave them both. Which of them therefore will love him most?"
Simon answered, "He, I suppose, to whom he forgave the most."
He said to him, "You have judged correctly." Turning to the woman, he said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered into your house, and you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head. You gave me no kiss, but she, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss my feet. You didn't 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 one to whom little is forgiven, loves little." He said to her, "Your sins are forgiven."
Those who sat at the table with him began to say to themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?"
He said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you. Go in peace."
We celebrate today Saint Hildegard of Bingen, a twelfth-century Benedictine abbess, composer, mystic, and Doctor of the Church — a woman whose visions, music, and theological writings crackled with the conviction that God's grace transforms everything it touches.
And that's precisely what threads through these readings: grace that actually does something.
Paul is almost breathless in that passage from First Corinthians. Notice how he stacks up the witnesses — Cephas, the twelve, five hundred at once, James, all the apostles — building a case like a lawyer who can't quite believe the verdict himself. And then he arrives at his own name and nearly stumbles. "The least of the apostles." Someone who persecuted the very community he now serves. The tension here is extraordinary: Paul doesn't minimize what he did, and yet he doesn't let it have the final word either. "By the grace of God," he says, "I am what I am."
That phrase is worth sitting with on an ordinary Wednesday. Not *despite* what we've done or failed to do — but within all of it, grace is still at work, still shaping something.
The woman in Luke's Gospel understands this in her bones. She doesn't ask permission. She doesn't wait for the right moment. She walks into a room where she isn't welcome and pours out everything she has at the feet of someone who sees her fully — and loves her anyway. Her extravagance isn't performance. It's the natural overflow of someone who knows what it means to be found.
Hildegard called this divine love *viriditas* — a kind of greening, a living force that renews what has gone dry. Consider how that image reframes our own moments of starting over.
Here are some questions to carry into the day:
Where are we holding back from God something that could simply be poured out?
What would it look like to receive forgiveness not as a transaction, but as the beginning of a love story?
And whose extravagant faith are we quietly dismissing — the way Simon did — because it doesn't look the way we expected?