OMELIE / Omelie EN

26/6/2016

30/10/2016 - 31st Sunday of O.T. C

30/10/2016 - 31st Sunday of O.T.  C 

1ª reading Wisdom 11,22 - 12,2 * from Psalm 144 * 2ª reading 2Ts 1,11 - 2,2 * Gospel Lk 19,1-10

When Jesus used to meet the sinner, called sinners because they were disobedient to God, he should have remembered the page from the book of Wisdom which we have heard. From where did he get the light and the strength to treat them with gentleness, with attention, with joy as he himself have done?

That page teaches in a convincing manner what is the love of God. It was he who had created men: would it ever be possible to treat them with hate? And not only men but also “all that things that exist” would not have existed if God did not want them, and if he wanted them, he loves them. Men then, when and if they distanced themselves from him, can be reconciled into him because he is patient and waits “You are compassionate with everyone....close your eyes on the sins of men, waiting for them to come back and repent”! And he concludes describing the patience of God: “ You correct little by little those who err and you admonish them reminding them in what they have erred, because putting aside every malice, they believe in you, Lord”. This is the experience which we all have done. God is very patient and he corrects us slowly slowly.

The evangelist presents us today Zacchaeus who was a sinner who wanted to see Jesus. Zacchaeus is a great sinner: for men he become untouchable. It is he who made them suffer, and thus everyone condemns him and distance himself from him. Jesus attracted him to the the heart of the father with his patience and with his willingness to save. He is not afraid to look at him in a different way from all the others. He does not look at him as as sinner but as one for whom God has alot of compassion, and thus loved and sought by him, as a son shaken here and there, but also able to do great things and also as loved by the father and also pardoned. To him he revolves his word, his look and invites him to the house of the Father. No one had done it before, because no Hebrew observant of the Law would enter the house of a sinner. Jesus calls him by name, Zacchaeus, which means “Pure” and treats him as if he were already pure.

Zacchaeus, accepting the invite of Jesus, infact has already become pure. Jesus is already in his own heart, and Jesus, the Son of the Father, is God. Sin thus is no longer present in Zacchaeus. Whoever loves Jesus loves the Father, and thus he is no longer a simmer. The decisions which Zacchaeus communicates, with joy and determination, are the fruit and sign that, no longer is there any sin ion him, but that the love of God has entered in his own heart. He infact puts himself standing before Jesus and communicates his decision to give his money to the poor. He became aware that they exist. This is a sign that the love of God works in him, that love which helps the orphans and the widow, that wants to help the poor. And he decides to remediate for his stealing and frauds, obeying to that Law which he until now has trumpeted. The poor start to be important for him as the relations with the others instead of accumulating money. Zacchaeus has become different, not more thinking about himself, but open, open to the love of the Father. For this reason Jesus can declare of him that which he cannot say about the others especially those who were with him but were far from him. “Today for this house, salvation came”, since God did not punish him for his own sins, but has been patient, now he can enjoy for the unexpected conversion. In the house, that is in all life and in all people, including that of Zacchaeus, salvation entered. Even his own family enjoy a way of living, encouraged for communion and fraternity. And all the town started to breathe a new air of serenity. What grace comes from the patience of God, his waiting and patience is merciful! The sinner is not dead, what is dead is his avidity, his arrogance, his egoism. This is what the Father wants, not the death of the sinner, but the end of sin.