A woman walks into a room. She wants to encounter Jesus. She cries at his feet and wipes his feet dry with her hair. All this provokes horror in the other people gathered in the room. “If he knew who this woman was,” they thought to themselves.

I heard a homily on this scripture passage a few years ago. Our presenter brought Jesus’ words to life for us. He said, “Do you SEE this woman?”  He stressed the word “see” in a way I had never thought of before.  He wasn’t talking about vision but feeling and awareness.  “Do you SEE this woman?”  If they “saw” her rather than noticed her, they’d know there was something very deep going on for her and that she was coming from a place of healing and was in search of friendship with the Lord.

That’s the challenge for all of us.  That we “see” people rather than just notice them.  We need somehow to see where people have come from to get to a place where we notice them. Then we see them whole in the sight of God and commit ourselves to solidarity with them.

• Vincent Sherlock
  Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network (Ireland)