Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Thirty-First Sunday of Ordinary Time, C, Vigil

October 29, 2022

 

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.29.22_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the brief homily: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday as we go with Jesus on a rescue mission to Jericho and learn there how Jesus seeks to rescue each of us, too.

* You remember that last week Jesus presented us the parable contrasting the prayer of the Pharisee and the Publican. Both went up to the temple to pray. Both left. And only one’s prayer was heard. The one who left justified was notthe outwardly devout Pharisee who fasted twice a week, gave ten percent of his income back to God, and rejoiced that he was not a thief, rogue, adulterer or tax collector. The one who left with a right relationship toward God was a humble tax collector, who stood at the back, beat his breast and begged, “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” In this Sunday’s Gospel, we encounter those characters from the parable — self-righteous “good people” who complain that Jesus interacts with sinners and a notorious, humble “tax collector” — in real life. And we see how the God-man responds when such a sinner calls out to him for such mercy.

* Jesus called himself the “Good Shepherd” and said that he would leave the ninety-nine to go in search of one sheep who was lost (John 10:11; Lk 15:4). Before that Good Shepherd headed up to Jerusalem to lay down his life for his sheep (John 10:15), he first wanted to hunt down one who was indeed lost. He went to literally the nethermost place on earth in search of perhaps the greatest public sinner of that city, to bring him back to his fold. He went to Jericho, the lowest city on the planet — 853 feet below sea level — to find Zacchaeus, who was not just one of a bunch of despised and basically excommunicated tax-collectors loathsome to the Jewish authorities, but the chief tax collector of the whole region. “Zacchaeus,” he said, “Today I must stay in your house!” and Zacchaeus “welcomed him with delight.” Jesus left the crowds behind and entered alone with the tax collector into his home and into his life. He called Zacchaeus, his lost sheep, by name (Is 43:1; John 10:3). The very name Zacchaeus means “God remembers,” and God had never forgotten him. Heaven rejoiced on that day more for his return than for those who had never wandered (Lk 15:7). Jesus takes a similar initiative in knocking at the door of our souls, asking for entry, coming to us wherever we are, no matter the depths to which we’ve sunk, no matter the fact that perhaps everyone else around us might despise us. To the extent that we repent of whatever sins we’ve committed and accept Jesus’ gracious invitation by “welcoming him with delight,” we, too, like Zacchaeus, can have salvation come to us.

* This is the first of three lessons we learn from the story of Zacchaeus and Jesus, that Jesus wants to take us apart from the crowd and bring us the salvation of his mercy. The place where Jesus ordinarily does this is the confessional, where Saint Pope John Paul II used to say Jesus and the whole Church exist solely for each of us alone. In the Sacrament of Reconciliation Jesus ministers to us individually, just as he interacted individually with Zacchaeus. But we have to be willing to go away with Jesus alone to receive this salvation; like Zacchaeus, we need to come down, to leave the perches of our pride and allow Jesus to go ...