My First Missionary
My denunciations were for the self-satisfied.
For the sinner, who felt his failure and weakness, I had the tenderest pity. “Go, and sin no more,” was My Word to the woman taken in adultery.
But what a Word of hope that was, revealing as it did the assurance that I trusted her not to fall into sin again. That I deemed her capable of a new life.
The Samaritan woman at Sychar’s well I trusted with a secret that even My disciples had not shared fully with Me. She was one of My first missionaries.
I recognize too the wealth of love in the offering of the woman who was a sinner. There was no public denunciation of her sin, no repulse of her love.
“Holy Father, cheer our way
With Thy love’s perpetual ray;
Grant us every closing day,
Light at evening time.”