Nagsulod si Jesus sa Jerico kay maagi siya didto.
May isa ka tawo didto nga manggaranon nga ang iya ngalan si Zaqueo. Siya amo ang pangulo sang mga manugsukot sang buhis.
Gusto gid niya nga makita kon sin-o gid si Jesus. Pero putot si Zaqueo kag tungod sa kadamuon sang mga tawo indi siya makakita kay Jesus.
Gani nagdalagan siya sa unhan kag nagsaka sa kahoy nga sikomoro agod makita niya si Jesus, kay didto gid siya dampi maagi.
Pag-abot ni Jesus didto nagtangla siya kag nagsiling, "Zaqueo, dali-dali ka nga magpanaog, kay karon nga adlaw kinahanglan didto ako madayon sa imo balay."
Gani dali-dali nga nagpanaog si Zaqueo, kag ginbaton niya si Jesus sing malipayon gid.
Sang makita sang mga tawo nga didto nagadayon si Jesus sa balay ni Zaqueo, nagkumod sila nga nagasiling, "Ngaa dira gid siya nagadayon sa balay sinang tawo nga makasasala?"
Didto sa iya balay nagtindog si Zaqueo kag nagsiling, "Ginoo, ipanagtag ko sa mga imol ang katunga sang akon pagkabutang. Kag kon may gindayaan ako, ibalik ko sa iya ang apat ka pilo."
Nagsiling si Jesus sa iya, "Karon ginluwas ini nga pamilya, tungod nga kaliwat man siya ni Abraham.
Kay ako nga Anak sang Tawo nagkadto diri sa kalibutan sa pagpangita kag sa pagluwas sang tanan nga nagtalang."
Prayers:
"Lord Jesus, come and stay with me. Fill my life with your peace, my home with your presence, and my heart with your praise. Help me to show kindness, mercy, and goodness to all, even to those who cause me ill-will or harm."
***
Reflection of the Daily Gospel:
What would you do if Jesus knocked on your door and said, "I must stay at your home today"? Would you be excited or embarrassed? Jesus often "dropped-in" at unexpected times and he often visited the "uninvited" – the poor, the lame, and even public sinners like Zacchaeus, the tax collector! Tax collectors were despised and treated as outcasts, no doubt because they over-charged people and accumulated great wealth at the expense of others. Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector and was much hated by all the people. Why would Jesus single him out for the honor of staying at his home? Zacchaeus needed God's merciful love and forgiveness. In his encounter with Jesus he found more than he imagined possible. He shows the depth of his repentance by deciding to give half of his goods to the poor and to use the other half for making restitution for fraud. Zacchaeus' testimony included more than words. His change of heart resulted in a change of life, a change that the whole community could experience as genuine.
Saint Augustine of Hippo urges us to climb the sycamore tree like Zacchaeus that we might see Jesus and embrace his cross for our lives:
Zacchaeus climbed away from the crowd and saw Jesus without the crowd getting in his way. The crowd laughs at the lowly, to people walking the way of humility, who leave the wrongs they suffer in God’s hands and do not insist on getting back at their enemies. The crowd laughs at the lowly and says, “You helpless, miserable clod, you cannot even stick up for yourself and get back what is your own.” The crowd gets in the way and prevents Jesus from being seen. The crowd boasts and crows when it is able to get back what it owns. It blocks the sight of the one who said as he hung on the cross, “Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing. … He ignored the crowd that was getting in his way. He instead climbed a sycamore tree, a tree of “silly fruit.” As the apostle says, “We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block indeed to the Jews, [now notice the sycamore] but folly to the Gentiles.” Finally, the wise people of this world laugh at us about the cross of Christ and say, “What sort of minds do you people have, who worship a crucified God?” What sort of minds do we have? They are certainly not your kind of mind. “The wisdom of this world is folly with God.” No, we do not have your kind of mind. You call our minds foolish. Say what you like, but for our part, let us climb the sycamore tree and see Jesus. The reason you cannot see Jesus is that you are ashamed to climb the sycamore tree.Let Zacchaeus grasp the sycamore tree, and let the humble person climb the cross. That is little enough, merely to climb it. We must not be ashamed of the cross of Christ, but we must fix it on our foreheads, where the seat of shame is. Above where all our blushes show is the place we must firmly fix that for which we should never blush. As for you, I rather think you make fun of the sycamore, and yet that is what has enabled me to see Jesus. You make fun of the sycamore, because you are just a person, but “the foolishness of God is wiser than men.Sermon 174.3.
The Lord Jesus is always ready to make his home with each one of us. Do you make room for him in your heart and in every area of your life?
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