19th November, 2013
Zacchaeus' episode in the Gospel is an evergreen example of an encounter that transforms a person. As St. Paul would say, 'if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation'(2Cor 5:17). When we allow the Lord to really encounter us, the Lord transforms the whole person. Nothing remains the same, everything is new because we begin to see everything from the perspective of the Lord. As Pope Francis says in his recent encyclical Lumen Fidei, Faith is not just to see Jesus, it is to see with the eyes of Jesus (LF 18)! When our faith is authentic, the whole perspective changes. What seems to be important, what seems to be necessary for someone may seem totally secondary to me, because I see as the Lord does, because I think as the Lord does, because I love as the Lord does. Eleazar in the first reading demonstrates the same to us - 'such pretense is not worthy of our time of life' (2 Mac 6:24), he says, caring the least to preserve his life, because he did not want to lead the others astray from God. The primacy of God in our life defines the quality of our faith.