Zacchaeus was small in stature and short-sighted in his wealth. He realized his puny perspective on life in his career as a tax collector. He felt a new flirtation in his heart, a desire to see Jesus.
In his resourcefulness, he climbed a tree. He eavesdropped on Jesus. He straddled the limb. He camouflaged from Jesus, the crowd, and himself.
Instead, Jesus’ eyes rested upon him. The branches could not hide the encounter. His past did not distort Jesus’ view of him. Jesus desired to go to his house.
The public grumbled. Zacchaeus’ heart sang. He was overcome by Jesus’ desire to enter his home and his heart. He desired to expand his wealth by giving it away. His restitution made him tall and free.
Jesus isn’t finished with us. He sees us no matter from where we hide. Jesus invites us to dinner. He desires us. He wants us to expand our hearts, not only in what we own, no matter the things that burden us. Jesus desires us, to encounter us.
The tree of our freedom is his cross. He is our only hope this day and tomorrow. Jesus seeks us and saves what is lost.
Based on Luke 18:9-14: The Pharisee and the Tax Collector
I wait for you. Sometimes, I approach you weighed down, carrying inner burdens, like rocks in my pocket. Sometimes, my head is bowed not because I can’t emotionally face you, but because I can’t face myself. Pride comes heavy in me.
I fill myself with myself. Looking good is my measure. I stand apart from others. I block my own vision. I speak only ill of them. Others’ dishonesty, greed, adultery make me look good. I am in reality bowed down by such ills.
Humility must become food. I do not know my left from my right. I look back pulling a thread of despair. I look ahead with eyes foggy with only myself. Humility nourishes me when nothing else shows me how to live. Look me in the eyes. Humility is on my plate.
O God, in your mercy, receive my sinfulness and my confusion about what has been and what will be. I see myself more clearly in your loving light. Remove the stones of my ills, my temper, my inability to face the truth. Empty my heart and my pockets. In your mercy, help me lift my head to see your loving face.
Pray always. Without drowsiness or questions. Weary not. A poor widow lifts her prayer from the dust. From emptiness she knows how to depend on God.
She wept on the privileged ground of the judge. She pierced his bloated conscience. Her truth crushed his unwillingness to listen to her.
Prayer without ceasing finds God. God’s chosen rise from poverty. Their fame rises from dry mouth and grit under their nails. Justice is born from her tears in darkness and authentic cries in daylight.
Pray always. The widow knows and teaches. She is still nameless. Her identity speaks volumes to us. We are filled up. We know our blistered egos. We must empty if we are to pray. Faith on the earth will fill the ears of the Son of Man. Hope will win in our day. Our persistent prayers fall into the lap of God who lifts us from the ground of our dusty despair. Faith on earth will flourish in red delight.
Leprous skin was untouchable. The wounds contagious and visible. The person invisible and isolated. The skin wounds became soul deep. The person became the disease.
Jesus touches the leper. He steps into the isolation. He heals the soul’s wounds. Jesus touches the person with love that unites and heals.
Gratitude healed the leper. Gratefulness on his lip’s changed his life and healed the wounds of his soul. Gratitude brought the leper back into communion with family and community. Gratefulness birth’s faith, hope and love.
Jesus teaches us that only he can touch what is untouchable within us. His grace is more than skin deep. He challenges us to be grateful every day. We come to him wounded and he sends us forth living in the mystery of gratefulness and faith.
The food you offer is eternal. Bread and wine become you. We break open our hearts as vessels that hold such love. Others come to feed on our presence because we have come to know who we are and whose we are. Feed us, love us, call us your own. Until our day of salvation, break us open to serve the starving, the malnourished from injustice and violence.
Open our hearts to receive what you offer. Help us find nourishment in the communion of a gentle autumn breeze and in the wave of a passing stranger. Give us food in the conversations of sharing grief. May we be filled with abundance when you speak in our hearts. Allow us food that lasts, not stale or processed, not moldy or left-overs, but of insights and relationships.
Martha and Mary hosted Jesus. Martha welcomed him. Mary sat at his feet. This image of two women together is our Christian life. Prayer and service combined. Learning how to sit at Jesus’ feet and learning how to serve him in the world form our lives of faith. Only together, prayer of the heart and the work of our hands, unite in following and hosting the Master.
Saint Francis (d. 1226), followed Jesus from the depths of his soul. He was converted after touching a leper and seeing him as Jesus. He left every worldly possession to follow his heart. He is one of the Church’s most profound mystics and teachers simply because he learned what Mary and Martha together had learned, that for the heart to know Jesus, we must listen carefully and serve lovingly.
This is the first time I have seen the full video available online. I was part of this tribute to Saint Andre Bessette when I was in Portland, OR. This video was created by Salt and Light Media for his canonization in 2010. Saint Andre is the first saint in the Congregation of Holy Cross. CLICK HERE TO WATCH the complete hour-long tribute to this holy man. The anniversary of his canonization is October 17.
Let us pray for the nameless poor who cross our paths every day. For the poor widow in the grocery store parking lot unable to lift her purchases or carry her inner loneliness. For the nameless elderly man on the bench who cannot raise his head even to ask for money or food. For the toothless woman in the drugstore who cannot pay for medications to keep her alive. For the people unnoticed. For the nameless ones whose names we will never know or speak on our lips
We pray to the Lord.
Let us pray for the strangers at the door of our nation. For the desperate ones who have traveled on foot to better their children’s lives. For people who do not speak the language of the land or the language of power or influence. For people who have walked in flipflops to access housing, education, and food. For people determined to simply live and whose stories of abuse, poverty, and injustice, we will never know or even imagine.
We pray to the Lord.
Let us pray for people who enter our church doors longing for a morsal of hope. For the young woman about to go to prison who shares with anyone who will listen that she was abused as a girl and to this day no one will help her face the consequences of such tragedy or even spend the time to help her see beyond her grief and shame. For people such as her. May we become more interested in knowing the experiences of people in poverty.
We pray to the Lord.
Let us pray for the people in mass graves in Ukraine. For the end of war and violence and hatred. For people who have fought to hold on to their country, their histories, and their lives. For people who died in fright. For the people buried one on top of another and who are nameless in silent mass graves. For people in unforms and in civilian clothes covered in dirt in large holes in the ground whom we will never know or hear their voices. May their names be written in bold in heaven.
We pray to the Lord.
Let us pray for our elderly poor. For our grandparents whose bodies are covered in bedsores in filthy nursing homes. May the names of our poor ones be known to us. May their needs not be diminished in urine-soaked beds. For the elderly woman who can no longer speak up because of dementia. For the bent over man who shuffles down the hall bearing the facemask of Parkinson’s. For the names we will never know, even though they are written by hand on the doors of their nursing home rooms. For the stories of love that will be silenced among the adult diapers and bibs in the stale and stinky rooms of someone’s grandparents.
We pray to the Lord.
Let us pray for people whose lips are parched, those who long for a taste of nourishment. For those who live in the great chasm of poverty on this side of the grave. For those who thirst because they live in food deserts in our inner cities. For those who thirst for inner peace because they only know street violence and mass shootings. For those who cannot feast on justice because they stare at a prison wall every day. For those who thirst for hope but have no one to listen to their stories. For those whose lips are dry because they speak only lies.
We pray to the Lord.
For people who bear the blisters of poverty on their bodies and within their hearts. For those who will never recover from surgery simply because of their depression. For those who bleed in the nighttime from skin cancer received in sunlight. For people without insurance or financial support. For people whose bodies are swollen from diabetes and heart disease. For people who will not go to a hospital for any reason because of the cost.
We pray to the Lord.
Let us pray for those who wear purple and those who survive in rags. For the ultimate rich and desperate poor. For those clothed in wealth and those clothed in tattered hand-me-downs. For the names of our loved ones at our doors that will be known only by God. May the Lord shout out their names for all eternity when they knock on heaven’s door.
For our Church across every nation and land. That we may be accountable to God for every good as we reach beyond our selfishness and embrace the marginalized and sinner.
We pray to the Lord.
For the right use of our gifts, talents and energy. That we may not squander our inheritance of God’s love as we live and work for justice and peace.
We pray to the Lord.
For a new awareness of our children’s lives, their growing talents and their generous spirits. That God may help us embrace every aspect of our children’s gifts with great joy.
We pray to the Lord.
For our loved ones in nursing homes, healthcare facilities and those living their last days in home hospice. That we may welcome healing when frustrations and worries consume us.
We pray to the Lord.
For the right use of our earthly resources. That we make work to help heal our planet so to prepare for our next generation of believers. May hope grow upon the ground we walk upon.
We pray to the Lord.
For the dignity of our loves who face death and for those who have died. That God may offer them the peace and rest of our heavenly home. In this Mass…
Broken But Not Divided 