- Today's Gospel reading is again
about a tax collector.
- Last week's parable was about a
tax collector who acknowledged his sinfulness and asked God for
forgiveness, and he returned home justified.
- Today it is about a real character, not a parable, but a real man called Zacchaeus, the tax collector from Jericho. He wanted to see Jesus, and Jesus surprised him because he also wanted to see him.
THE BOOK OF WISDOM
v Again the liturgy takes the first
reading from the wisdom literature, the Book of Wisdom
v This book is known as a
"deuterocanonical book". In the Catholic tradition the
deuterocanonical books are considered revealed by God , but this is not so among the Jewish community of faith and the
other Christian traditions.
v Chapters 11 to 19 are a meditation on the exodus.
v Gianfranco Ravassi in his commentary
says that chapters 11 to 19 of this jewel of the Jewish Greek literature of
Alexandria in Egypt has a chapter on the invincible love of God toward his
creatures, even being sinful.
v FIRST READING: Wis11:22-12,2
ü Everything that has been created is
small before God, but God takes care of all.
ü God takes care especially of the
human being, and the book of Wisdom
tells us that this is so because God can do all things.
ü and it continues saying something surprising,
God overlooks people's sins, he does not want to see our sins, to offer to us
the opportunity to repent.
ü What a different image of God from
the one we project some times with our words and our attitudes!
ü Another beautiful expression is found
on verse 26 "but you forgive all because they are yours, O Lord the friend
of life.
ü God is the friend of life, and
sometimes it seems that we are the
friends of death, because the society we have built and continue to built is
full of the violence of death.
ü We have allowed ourselves to be
deceived by the evil spirit who has convinced us that what is good is bad, and
what is bad is good!
ü God does much more, he reprimands us
little by little, in the way only him
knows and thus little by little he molds our being, and offers us the
opportunity to discover his presence in
our life, and when this happens we cannot reject
his love any longer, and thus we surrender
ourselves to him.
SALMO RESPONSORIAL 145,1-2. 8-9. 10-11. 13,14
I WILL PRAISE YOUR NAME
FOR EVER, MY KING AND MY GOD
I will extol you,
O my God and King
and I will bless
your name forever and ever
Everyday will I
bless you
and I will praise
your name forever and ever.
The Lord is gracious and merciful
slow to anger and
of great kindness
The Lord is good
to all
and compassionate
toward all his works.
Let all your works
give you thanks, O Lord
and let your
faithful ones bless you
Let them discourse
of the glory of your Kingdom
and speak of your
might.
The Lord is faithful in all his words
and holy in all
his works
The Lord lift up
all who are falling
and raises up all
who are bow down.
Ø
The praises to
God for his works has been sung from generation to generation, up to the
psalmist time
Ø
He has to
continue this long chain of praises and he does it with his psalm.
Ø
This praise is
the poet's, but also ours.
Ø
Let us join our
voices to this praise, let us sing, dance, joyfully dance because our God loves
us and he is great and powerful.
GOSPEL Lk 19:1-10
The Gospel tells
the encounter of Jesus with the tax collector, an encounter that brings
salvation to that man and his entire household.
Zacchaeus, is his
name, it is the Greek version of his Jewish
name Zakkai.
He is short in
stature, but he looks for the way to see Jesus.
He had probably
heard about this young itinerant prophet who speaks in such a different way
than the teachers of the law, a man who shows so much love that it is
impossible not to be attracted to him
and to follow him.
Zacchaeus climbs
a sycamore, maybe he thinks that nobody sees him, because for a prominent man
as he is, this action would be very humiliating.
But somebody has
seen him, and when he walks under the tree, he lifts up his eyes and calls him
"today I want to have dinner with you."
To have dinner is an expression of intimacy,
of friendship. Jesus wants to be friend of Zacchaeus, trully he
is already friend of Zacchaeus. Up to now Zacchaeus does not know it, but today
he will discover it and will be happy.
He will be happy to feel himself loved by
Jesus, who is the image of the invisible God, his son. After this experience
Zacchaeus will love his fellow men and he will realize the wrong he has done,
and he will have the determination to amend the evil he has done.
Only the
unconditional love of Jesus, manifested in his going to the house of Zacchaeus,
will give to this man the willingness to give away the fortune he has made
stealing from others.
As it is customary
the Gospel shows us the two tendencies that are always found among the human beings:
v
he has entered
the house of a sinner, it seems that we forget that we all are sinners.
v
salvation has
come to this house, yes with Jesus salvation comes to us and renews all the
different aspects of our being.
v
Everything is
restored, made a new creation.
This fragment
of Luke's Gospels reveals to us the joy
of salvation, of the coming back home, of the paternal embrace.
This is also our experience of forgiveness and
conversion. Is it not?
THANK YOU LORD
BECAUSE THIS CAN ONLY BE YOUR WORK, AND ALSO OUR COOPERATION, BUT AS
ALWAYS YOU HAVE THE INITIATIVE. THANK
YOU!
SECOND READING 2 Tes 1:11-22
v
We are not one hundred percent sure that this letter
has been written by Paul, the scholars keep looking for answers. It seems that
it was written by one of his disciples.
v
The author prays
to God for the community of Thessalonica, that it may be worthy of the call it
has received, and thus live its faith responsibly.
v
All of this for
the glory and honor of our Lord Jesus Christ's name.
v
It seems that the
community was upset by things that had been told to them, as if Paul had
written them.
v
The author says
to them that he has not written anything of what upsets them.
v
Afterwards he calms
them explaining that the second coming
of the Lord is not so imminent as some
think.
v
On this theme of
the second coming there is a great difference between the first letter and the
second to the Thessalonians. In the first Paul himself was speaking as if it
was imminent.
This
certainty she has because of my behaving in the religious life was an
intolerable pain for the one who had such a poor religious spirit. Well, I went
to my cell as I could and I needed not a little grace of God to take courage.
Here I began to complain to our Lord and said to Him: “Until when my Lord and
my God, until when will you wait to put an end to my tears? I know well that it
is because of my great sins that I am not worthy to see your Divine light nor
to live in your house but, my Lord and my Father, at least show it to your
ministers, the interpreters of your will for them to guide my steps according
to your Divine pleasure. Tell me, Lord,
what I have to do in this difficult predicament. Do not be anymore deaf to my
tears. It is high time already that you manifest your most holy will. It has
been nine years of waiting for your divine designs. I cannot wait anymore. Do
not permit, my God, that because of my ingratitude, I may loose the happiness I
have in my hand and become irremediably unlucky. To leave mothers and sisters
so dear is to divide my heart, but to pull me out of your holy house will be to
pull out my soul. But, my redeemer, provided that you save my soul, save it,
save me by the means You prefer even though suffering martyrdom all my life,
that this will be for me to live in the world. Love for the enclosure was
invincibly powerful, but love for your most holy will, O Lord, makes me
surrender to any sacrifice. You are just, O Lord, and you are equity and
justice yourself, and if any sins in your holy house deserved this punishment,
may your most holy will be done, O Lord. Venerable
María Antonia París, Foundress of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 106.
On Sundays and feast days, in many of the towns, the men
had to bear arms and take part in military maneuvers and so could not attend
Mass or other religious services, as was their custom. Good deeds were hindered
and bad deeds of all sorts were encouraged. Everywhere you turned you could see
nothing but scandals and outrages and hear nothing but blasphemies and lies. It
seemed as if all hell had broken loose.Saint Anthony Mary Claret, Founder of the Claretian Missionary
Sisters, Autobiography 459.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CLARET, Antonio María Claret, Autobiografía.
PAGOLA,
José A. Following in the Footsteps of
Jesus. Meditations on the Gospels for Year C.
PARIS, María Antonia, Autobiografía
RAVASI, Gianfranco, Según
las Escrituras, Año C.
The Catholic Study Bible
-New American Bible. 
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