杏MAP导航

By Christopher Wells

At the Angelus on Sunday, 杏MAP导航 Francis reflected on the Gospel account of Jesus’ meeting with Zacchaeus in Jericho.

Zacchaeus was a tax collector, and for this reason was considered a public sinner. When he heard that Jesus was coming through Jericho, he “wanted to see who Jesus was” – he didn’t expect to meet Him, 杏MAP导航 Francis said, “but was curious: he wanted to see this person about Whom he’d heard such wonderful things”. Because he was a short man, Zacchaeus climbed a tree to get a look at the Lord.

The merciful gaze of Jesus

When Jesus approached, He looked up and saw Zacchaeus. “This is important” the 杏MAP导航 said. “The first gaze is not that of Zacchaeus, but of Jesus”. 杏MAP导航 Francis explained that “the merciful gaze of the Lord reaches us before we ourselves realize our need of being saved”. And, he said, it is with this Divine gaze that Zacchaeus’ miraculous conversion begins. Jesus did not “rebuke him or give him a sermon”, the 杏MAP导航 said, but told Zacchaeus that he must stay in his house. “He ‘must’”, the 杏MAP导航 said, “because it is the will of the Father”.

In the Gospel, we read that the people murmured against Jesus because he went to the home of a sinner. “We too might have been scandalized by this behavior of Jesus,” the 杏MAP导航 said. But the contempt the people had for Zacchaeus only isolated him, and prompted him to sin even more. “God, on the other hand, condemns the sin, but seeks to save the sinner”, 杏MAP导航 Francis said. “Those who have never felt God seeking them, find it difficult to grasp the extraordinary greatness of the actions and words with which Jesus approaches Zacchaeus”.

Encountering Love

It is the welcome and attention Jesus shows to Zacchaeus that lead to his conversion, the 杏MAP导航 continued. “In an instant, he realized how petty was a life consumed by money”. When Jesus came to him, Zacchaeus was able “to see everything with different eyes, and even with a little bit of the tenderness with which Jesus looked on him”. Where before he was greedy, now he is generous; before he wanted to gain more, now he was happy to give. “Encountering Love,” the 杏MAP导航 said, “discovering that he is loved despite his sins, [Zacchaeus] becomes capable of loving others”, turning money from a source of sin, to “a sign of solidarity and communion”.

Concluding his reflection, 杏MAP导航 Francis prayed, “May the Virgin Mary obtain for us the grace to always feel the merciful gaze of Jesus upon us, in order to meet with mercy those who have made mistakes, so that they too can welcome Jesus, Who ‘has come to seek and to save what was lost’”.