Parable of the Lost Drachma

The Lost Drachma, after James Tissot, Brooklyn Museum

Of the three "parables of mercy" (), the lost drachma () is often overshadowed in favor of the more well-known parables of the lost sheep ( and ) and the prodigal son ( and ). Yet all three are the same response to the complaints of the scribes and Pharisees against the good man that Jesus reserves for sinners, as indicated at the beginning of the chapter ().

The Parable

Luke’s parable covers three verses (8-10):

"Or suppose a Woman has ten pieces of silver and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost piece of silver!’ In the same way, I tell you, there is joy before the Angels of God over one sinner who repents."

It is a familiar and credible scene that Luke summarizes in two lines. Here, the reader, like the listener of the time, immerses themselves in the situation. He “composes the place,” to borrow the first advice given by Saint Ignatius of Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises. The issue is important for the Woman because a drachma of silver represents a day’s wage for labor. With this setup, we find ourselves well situated in this oratorical art of comparison that Daniel-Rops highlighted as typical of Palestine at the time of Jesus:

The notion of mâshâl is fundamental to understanding what Israelite eloquence could be; one also finds its application in countless passages of written literature, Old or New Testaments, but fundamentally it is tied to speech. The Hebrew language, concise and colorful, is awkward when it comes to translating abstractions and higher realities: it manages with images, symbols, comparisons. This is quite consistent with Israelite psychology, whose power of intuition is extraordinary, which immediately sees the topical, realistic, familiar trait, and excels at drawing a lesson from it.

But this oratorical art of comparison is not merely a parable: a mashal (משל) comes with a moral or religious lesson. The liturgy even foresees that after the reading of a passage from the Gospel, a parable, its meaning be explained by the homily. Yet Luke’s account goes straight to the key concluding sentence: "There is joy before the Angels of God over one sinner who repents." This shortcut raises a question: what is the connection, at first glance, between a sinner and a lost coin?

What Maria Valtorta says about it

Mary Magdalene, CEV, 2019

The Valtorta Enigma, Volume 2, J-F. Lavère, RSI publishers, 2014.

In Maria Valtorta, in accordance with the reality of the time, the moral meaning, the ultimate aim of a parable, is developed and explained by Jesus. Her contribution is therefore especially in the explanation given by Jesus.

The Context of the Parable

In this chapter of EMV, Jesus expands the scene summarized in the first two verses of Luke: a Woman with her friends accidentally drops the purse she carries on her chest. Everyone helps to search for the coins, but one is missing, nowhere to be found. The friends give up and leave. The Woman persists, moves the heavy furniture, and finally finds the drachma amid a pile of rubbish where it had rolled. She cleans it and leaves, all joyful, to announce her joy to the friends who had left.

Then Jesus draws the moral comment. He relentlessly seeks the Souls that, escaping Him, have rolled “in the rubbish.” This is the key point of the episode, as emphasized by Jean-François Lavère in his work, because this explanation gives full meaning to the parable and its conclusion.

Thus developed, Luke’s parable takes coherence, but the historical context adds a higher dimension that introduces the Heart of God’s mercy in Jesus. The scene takes place at Magdala, a fashionable resort on the shore of the Sea of Galilee where Mary Magdalene led a dissolute life, a source of scandals. She returns there, this time in the company of Jesus and the group of Apostles, after her conversion. This conversion had started with the parable of the lost sheep, spoken to her personally, which she listened to while remaining hidden. Following that, she appeared at Simon the Pharisee’s Banquet, where she washed Jesus’ feet with her tears of repentance and wiped them with her Hair (Luke 7:36-50). The inhabitants of Magdala, unaware of this path of conversion, are expectant in the face of an unexpected and so radically changed situation.

Noteworthy Points

With the parable of the lost sheep, Mary Magdalene, held by "seven demons" (), had heard for the first time the call of love, drawn from the eternal Word of the Redeemer God “you are precious in my eyes and I love you, and I would give everything for you,” as reported by Isaiah, instead of judgment and condemnation. Thus begins for her the path of conversion, in the literal sense of a change of direction. She must face the doubtful, even mocking looks of the inhabitants of Magdala, or the Pharisees’ sarcasm. The parable of the found drachma means to all the attitude to follow: God’s friends rejoice in conversion, those of his Adversary rage. "And I also tell you that the way a man welcomes the conversion of a sinner is the measure of his goodness and his union with God."

To go further

• Index of the Parables of the EMV:
• Search in the Valtorta Index.
• Discuss on the Maria Valtorta Forum.

The Gospel as it was revealed to me (Maria Valtorta).