Do we know what it means to be lost?…If you do, you too would give people a chance…..Deep down we all want to be “good”……Give people the opportunity to be good…They may surprise you

Today at Holy Mass we hear from St Luke in the gospel…Jesus does something that is shocking to the status quo…He befriends a known sinner…”Now a man there named Zacchaeus, who was a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man, was seeking to see who Jesus was; but he could not see him because of the crowd, for he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus, who was about to pass that way. When he reached the place, Jesus looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house”……People love to point fingers and “think” they are better than others…When in fact, we are all sustained by grace and could just as easily be much worst then the greatest of sinners…..Jesus today met Zacchaeus exactly where he was, that does not mean Christ condoned his sins, however it does mean he loved Zacchaeus so much that he did not want to have him stay in that condition…As a result of Jesus’s gesture of friendship, Zacchaeus repents….This is what true “accompaniment” is, a term used by many in the Catholic Church today….“Accompaniment” is nothing more than friendship….It does not mean you lower or “mask” Catholic teaching, it simply means you extend a hand of friendship, showing a person what it means to be a follower of Christ by your life’s example…..Deep down we all want to be “good”….Give people a chance, they might surprise you

“Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.”

In the history of the Church some of the biggest sinners became the greatest of saints…..There is something special about a person who has “been around the block”, who then repents and turns their life to God…They can give a perspective that others can not…..Nothing is wasted, even our repented sin is used by God to help others……There are somethings that can not be learned in books…One of those things is empathy….To fully understand how someone feels because you yourself went through the same thing….When Jesus was on the cross, only a few people stood by his side…One of those people was Mary Magdalene…Scripture tells us that seven demons were removed from her by Christ…..And once Mary Magdalene “turned the corner”, there was no stopping her….Notice when push came to shove who went running for the hills and who stayed…The 12 friends of Jesus liked to “talk a good game”….At times they even pointed fingers and criticized people only for Jesus to correct them….With all there “big talk”, when Jesus needed them the most, the first 12 apostles ran away….Not Mary Magdalene!…Why do you think that was the case?…I think because Mary Magdalene knew first hand what it was like to be isolated, wounded and alone….She could deeply identify with Jesus as he hung on the cross, therefore she was not going to let him suffer alone…Jesus honors Mary Magdalene’s courage….When he rose from the dead, Mary Magdalene, the known sinner was the first to see him in his glorified body…..”But Mary stayed outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been. And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” She thought it was the gardener and said to him, “Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni”………..If I had to “go to war” against the powers of hell….Give me 12 public sinners who fully repented their sin any day of the week…..These are my people…And you know what?…They are Jesus’s people too!

“God loved us, and sent his Son as expiation for our sins”

In the Gospel today St Luke tells us about Jesus giving a public sinner a chance….Do we give people a chance?…Do we think we are better than others?….Jesus did not condone bad behavior and frankly nor should we…But how do we respond to it?…..Its so very easy to see the wrongs of this world…However, its hard to address those wrongs positively and the only way to do that is to give a good and consistent example day in and day out…To give that example, we must first change ourself and that requires grace….This is how we change the world - The only way!………”For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost”…….Do we know what it means to be lost?…If you do, you to would give people a chance…..Deep down we all want to be “good”……Give people the opportunity to be good…They may surprise you