Many people debate who the woman in today’s Gospel was. I think Our Lord kept this woman’s identity hidden for a reason. The woman in today’s Gospel represents each one of us! That woman sought out our Lord, and she was not frightened of Him in her sinfulness. Everyone in the room knew what kin of a woman she was. She was known for her public sin, yet she had the nerve to approach Jesus.

Why did the woman seek out Jesus? He was known as a healer. He cast out demons, raised the dead, challenged the Pharisees and turned water into wine and did so much mor that “the world could not contain all the books” if everything were written abbot all Jesus did and said. This woman didn’t seek miracles, signs or wonders, she sought mercy, she sought love.

All of us are in need of Our Lord’s mercy and love. There is not one of us who foes not sin, and if we think we don’t we are deceived. All of us also need love. We were created to “know, love and serve God”, and our “hearts will be restless until they rest in” Him alone. All people need to kneel at the feet of Our Lord and seek mercy as did that unknown woman.

This woman also gives us another lesson. She came up behind Him, washed his feet with her tear, dried them with her hair and anointed them with precious perfume. Although we can not do exactly what that woman did, we can care for our Lord.

The unknown woman shows us the great care, love and reverence we should have for Our Lord present in the Blessed Sacrament. Do we show as much love as she did by our full, conscious and thoughtful care of the consecrated host when we approach the altar rail? Do we reverently take Him on our tongues or in our hands as the Church instructs us to do? Are we recollected before the Mass begins, during the celebration of the Mass and as we depart from the Church or are we more concerned with greeting the people around us?

If that woman were to attend Mass today, she would be gossiped about as being the most sinful person in town, but she would indeed be the one who treats the Most Holy Sacrament with the most loving reverence.