Be undeterred in seeking God

Sisters and brothers in Christ, in today's Gospel, we see a Zacchaeus who has such an intense desire that he risked climbing a sycamore tree to see Jesus and get his attention. He was undeterred by his own physical limitations. More importantly, he was undeterred by what others thought of him for even as they grumble and call him a "sinner", he stood his ground before others and make his intentions known to Christ.

In Zacchaeus, there is nothing "lukewarm" about him, nothing that is "neither hot nor cold", he is "earnest" and "repent" so when Jesus stands at the "door" of his heart and knocks, Zacchaeus happily welcomes Christ into his home and dine with him. For what is foolish in the eyes of man is what God desires of us - faithfulness and trust in Him, our Lord and our God.

Let us be like Zacchaeus, on fire with our faith and have the humility to know that we need God in our lives, because we do. More importantly, in our journey toward God, let us not allow others to deter us from seeking God's mercy and forgiveness. Particularly, may we never believe the lies that we are unforgiveable because we can never go any place so dark that the light of Christ cannot reach us. The ocean of God's love and mercy is vast.

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Gospel of the Day

At that time Jesus came to Jericho and intended to pass through the town.

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.” 

And he came down quickly and received him with joy. 

When they saw this, they began to grumble, saying, 

“He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner.” 

But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord,

“Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor,

and if I have extorted anything from anyone

I shall repay it four times over.”

And Jesus said to him,

“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.”