31st Sunday in Ordinary Time (C) for 11-4-07

Scripture Readings
First Wisdom 11:22-12:2
Second 2 Thessalonians 1:11-2:2
Gospel Luke 19:1-10

Prepared by: Fr. Peter John Cameron, O.P.

1. Subject Matter
• God mercifully calls sinners to repentance
• God makes us worthy of his calling and powerfully brings to fulfillment every good purpose
and every effort of faith
• The phenomenon of “seeking to see who Jesus was”—What is this? Where does it come
from?

2. Exegetical Notes
• “You loathe nothing that you have made; for what you hated you would not have fashioned:”
“God, whose power is irresistible and who is therefore free of constraint, loves all the things
that his creative power has made, for only love can explain his having created and preserved
them. Because of this love, he pardons them and is patient in their regard so that they might
repent” (A. Wright).
• “that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you:” “The Name is the very person of
Christ. In the ancient East the use of the name called forth the effective power of the person”
(JBC citing L. Cerfaux).
• Zacchaeus starts with two strikes against him: he is a tax collector and he is wealthy. God
destines to send away empty the self-satisfied wealthy (Lk 1:53). Jesus pronounces against
the rich who seek their consolation in the present (Lk 6:24). Christ’s parables berate the
foolishness of the self-content (Lk12:16-21) and underscore the torment they incur on
themselves (Lk 16:19-31). The hope of the wealthy lies in giving what they have to the poor
(Lk 18:22) and in living with the self-abandonment of the poor (Lk 21:1).
• When Zacchaeus hurries down from the tree, his action imitates that of the Blessed Virgin
Mary hastening to visit Elizabeth (1:39) as well as that of shepherds rushing to adore Jesus
in the manger (Lk 2:16).
3. References to the Catechism of the Catholic Church
• 288 The revelation of creation is inseparable from the revelation and forging of the covenant
of the one God with his People. Creation is revealed as the first step towards this covenant,
the first and universal witness to God's all-powerful love. And so, the truth of creation is also
expressed with growing vigor in the message of the prophets, the prayer of the psalms and
the liturgy, and in the wisdom sayings of the Chosen People.

• 68 By love, God has revealed himself and given himself to man. He has thus provided the
definitive, superabundant answer to the questions that man asks himself about the meaning
and purpose of his life.
• 1492 Repentance (also called contrition) must be inspired by motives that arise from faith. If
repentance arises from love of charity for God, it is called "perfect" contrition; if it is founded
on other motives, it is called "imperfect."
• 1896 Where sin has perverted the social climate, it is necessary to call for the conversion of
hearts and appeal to the grace of God. Charity urges just reforms. There is no solution to the
social question apart from the Gospel (cf. CA 3, 5).

4. Patristic Commentary and Other Authorities

• St. Ambrose: As we witness the miracle of conversion in Zacchaeus, “who will hereafter
despair of himself, not that he (Zacchaeus) attens grace who gained his living by fraud.”
• TIT. BOST. The seed of salvation had begun to spring up in him, for he desired to see Jesus,
having never seen Him. For if he had seen Him, he would long since have given up the Publican's
wicked life. No one that sees Jesus can remain any longer in wickedness. But there were two
obstacles to his seeing Him. The multitude not so much of men as of his sins prevented him, for
he was little of stature.
• Msgr. Luigi Giussani: Let us look again at the Lord’s encounter with Zacchaeus. “Hurry
because I am to stay at your house today. And he hurried down and welcomed him joyfully’”
(Lk 19:5-6). This is the Eucharist: Christ gives us back a humanity capable of justice, of joy,
of welcome—a true humanity; and he does this by coming to our house. We, too, would like
to be snatched from the trees of our various plans and hear him say: “I am coming to you.”
Or, we might desire the familiarity of the youngest disciple who laid his head on Jesus’
shoulder at the last supper. But there is nothing more profound than the type of familiarity
that Christ makes me capable of by giving himself to me as food and drink. What the sign
points to really happens within the material sign itself: he becomes one with me. In a sign, an
unimaginably profound, ontological relationship is communicated to our lives.

• Fr. Julian Carron: Let’s not surrender the desire that constitutes us. The problem is not
weakness, but giving in to the lie. We can be weak and fall a thousand times, but we can
begin again. If we don’t give in to the lie, there is no problem. The lie is “I don’t desire this.”
Because you are denying what your heart desires. Nothing can impede the fact that we keep
desiring something. Christ awakens our desire. For example, the Samaritan woman, she
could hide her husbands, but she couldn’t deny that she wanted to be happier. Or
Zacchaeus. The Word became Flesh to continue the dialogue with you and me.
• Msgr. Luigi Giussani: The greatest miracle, which left a deep imprint on the disciples every
day, was not the healing of crippled legs, the cleansing of diseased skin, or the restoration of
sight to the blind. The greatest miracle of all was impossible to evade. Nothing is more
convincing to man than a gaze which takes hold of him and recognizes what he is, which
reveals man to himself. Jesus saw inside man. No one could hide in front of him, and before
him the depths of conscience had no secrets…. Quite simply, Zacchaeus had been
penetrated and captured by a gaze that recognized and loved him for what he was. The
ability to take hold of the heart of a man is the greatest, most persuasive miracle of all.

• Fr. Bernard Bro, O.P.: But all the God of Jesus has to say, in history and in our daily lives,
is: “Are you willing?” Disarmed and disarming: “Are you willing?” Are you willing, like the
prodigal son, to rely on another image of yourself and so recover hope? Are you willing, like
Zacchaeus to look beyond your guilt? Attuned to the Beatitudes, are you willing to take the
poor man in, to suffer for righteousness, peace and mercy? Are you willing not to be afraid of
weeping? Are you willing to entrust me with your past and future? Are you willing? And lastly,
are you willing to have me? Are you willing to lead your life with me, the real life, the life of
hoping and giving, of truth and joy? No longer us, then, purifying our ideas or inventing our
idols, no longer us seeking God by the light of our own courage, our own notions: but God,
God himself, with Jesus’ face, embodied in the concrete events of daily life, coming looking
for us and asking this one question: “Are you willing, are you willing to make your life a
partnership with me? Are you willing?”

• Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity: The master unceasingly repeats this word to our soul
which he once addressed to Zacchaeus. “Hurry and come down.” But what is this descent
that he needs of us except an entering more deeply into our interior abyss? This act is not
“an external separation from external things,” but a “solitude of spirit,” a detachment from all
that is not God. “As long as our will has fancies that are foreign to divine union, whims that
are now yes, now no, we are like children; we do not advance with giant steps in love for fire
has not yet burnt up all the alloy; the gold is not pure; we are still seeking ourselves; God has
not consumed” all our hostility to him. God’s love leads us by ways and paths known to him
alone; and he leads us with no turning back, for we will not retrace our steps.

5. Examples from the Saints and Other Exemplars

• Christ’s “visitation” of Zacchaeus’ household recalls the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
to Elizabeth: “Who am I that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?”
• What was the reaction of the lepers of Molokai when Fr. Damien de Veuster—Blessed
Damien the Leper—arrived on the island and decided to live with them? Was it in any way
like that of Zacchaeus?
• The story told in The Exemplar of Bl. Henry Suso being visited by “young men”—emissaries
from heaven. The first one told him that “they had been sent down to him from God to give
him heavenly joy in his suffering. He should, he said, cast his sufferings out of his mind, join
their company, and take part in their heavenly dancing.” Earlier, an angel had told Suso:
“Look with joy into yourself and see how dear God plays his games of love with your
affectionate soul.”
6. Quotations from Pope Benedict XVI
• “Being a Christian as such is to be transformed; it must involve repentance and not just
some embellishment added onto the rest of one’s life. It reaches down into our depths and
renews us from those very depths. The more we ourselves as Christians are renewed from
the root up, the better we can understand the mystery of transformation.”
• “God came down in Christ, took upon himself the limitations of human existence, suffering
them to the end, and in the infinite love of the crucified One opened up the door to infinity.
The real end of creation, its underlying purpose—and conversely that of human existence as
willed by the Creator—is this very union, “that God may be all in all.”
• “It is really so: the purpose of our lives is to reveal God to men. And only where God is seen
does life truly begin. Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is. We
are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a
thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary. There is
nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ.
There is nothing more beautiful than to know him and to speak to others of our friendship
with him.”
7. Other Considerations
• What PUT Zacchaeus in that tree in the first place? What was he looking for? He had a
DESIRE that went beyond even his ambition, exploitation, and sin—to see Jesus.
• Repentance always directed toward a person (L. Albacete).
• “I must stay at your house.” To be welcomed by Christ makes us forever welcoming of
Christ (cf. 9:47-48). Who knows: maybe Zacchaeus was that unnamed disciple on the road
to Emmaus who pleaded with the unrecognized risen Christ: “Stay with us” (Lk 24:29).

Recommended Resources
Benedict XVI, Pope. Benedictus. Yonkers: Magnificat, 2006.

Cameron, Peter John. To Praise, To Bless, To Preach—Cycle C. Huntington: Our Sunday

Visitor, 2000.

Malovetz, Gregory. http://www.borromeo.org/reflect/homilies2004/31stSunOrd2004.html