An Interrupting Grace The Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

                                                   An Interrupting Grace

The Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

October 30, 2022

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Wisdom 11:22-12:2; Psalm 145; 2 Thessalonians 1:11-2:2; Luke 19:1-10

 

          When we hear the readings about Zacchaeus, we know we are coming to the end of the church year. He is one of the later disciples of Jesus who reforms his life and follows Jesus on the way from Jericho, which is at the base of the mountain near Jerusalem. Zacchaeus has his limitations, his height, and the fact that he was a dreaded tax collector, a traitor to the Jewish nation, but something happened to him before he met Jesus. He encountered grace, a grace he did not feel he deserved, but a grace that reconstructed his life and brought him zeal to make amends to live under God’s rule, and by doing so, he became a man filled with happiness and a meaningful life. 

 

          Notice that Zacchaeus’s conversion had happened before he met Jesus. Something inside his soul was churning that gave rise to his desire to meet Jesus. News of Jesus spread through all of Palestine, and Zacchaeus felt fortunate to have Jesus pass his way. It was notable that he climbed the Sycamore because it spoke of his desire just to see the man passing his way, but he had already decided how he would repair his relationship to those he previously defrauded. Perhaps the presence of Jesus gave him the nudge, but he knew he was moving towards holiness. Grace set his future in motion. When critics ridiculed Jesus for choosing him, Zacchaeus was nonplussed because he knew he was already a different man, still unworthy, but trusting that God was calling him to a higher level of holiness. He was beginning to understand the meaning of life.

 

          We also have encounters with grace, even if we do not recognize them as such. When we are moving towards greater goodness, to an increase of love, and to deepening compassion, we are experiencing grace. We talk about grace without really defining it, but this grace is God’s gift to humanity, which allows us to flower in life-giving and life-sustaining relationships. It is grace that keeps marriages and friendships together because we still see the possibilities of ongoing love. Grace is the enduring, irreplaceable source of life for humans and all of creation. We depend upon this grace more than we thought possible.  

 

          Grace is God’s unconditional free gift to us, which is hidden, mostly undetectable, and with a quality that does not limit human freedom. We experience grace when we have freedom. If we are feeling constrained, imposed upon, or restricted in some way, we are not able to move in freedom and we need liberation. This grace moves beyond sin. The church needs to talk more about grace than sin because it is a more powerful force, and grace keeps us moving forward in the right direction, always onward and upward as it looks to the future. It brings about authenticity within ourselves and communities as it draws people together into a community of goodwill. 

 

          Grace is what interrupted Zacchaeus’s life and helped him attain a more expansive worldview. It made him access his God-given capacity to hear and respond to the call of Jesus, the rightness of being aligned to his way of life where everything made sense and had value. Nothing less than God’s presence could satisfy and complete his life. We want the same thing. The nearer we move towards God, the more real we become, and the more we allow God to grow and dwell within us, we become more free with an inclination to continue to choose God, who is real, and true, and beautiful, and loving. Grace will call us to holiness. Grace will invite us transform into greater righteous. Grace will lead us home where it all makes sense once again. 

 

Scripture for Daily Mass

 

First Reading: 

 

Monday: (Philemon 2) If there is any encouragement in Christ, any solace in love,
any participation in the Spirit, any compassion and mercy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing.

 

Tuesday: (Revelation 7) He cried out in a loud voice to the four angels who were given power to damage the land and the sea, “Do not damage the land or the sea or the trees until we put the seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.”

 

Wednesday: (Wisdom 3) The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead; and their passing away was thought an affliction and their going forth from us, utter destruction. But they are in peace.

 

Thursday: (Philemon 3) We are the circumcision, we who worship through the Spirit of God, who boast in Christ Jesus and do not put our confidence in flesh, although I myself have grounds for confidence even in the flesh.

 

Friday (Philemon 3) But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified Body  by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself. 

 

Saturday (Philemon 4) I rejoice greatly in the Lord that now at last you revived your concern for me. You were, of course, concerned about me but lacked an opportunity. Not that I say this because of need, for I have learned, in whatever situation I find myself, to be self-sufficient.

 

Gospel: 

 

Monday: (Luke 14) Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

 

Tuesday: (1 John 3) Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure, as he is pure.

 

Wednesday (Romans 6) For if we have grown into union with him through a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection. We know that our old self was crucified with him, so that our sinful body might be done away with, that we might no longer be in slavery to sin.

 

Thursday (Luke 15) The tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus, but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

 

Friday (Luke 16) Prepare a full account of your stewardship, because you can no longer be my steward.’ The steward said to himself, ‘What shall I do, now that my master is taking the position of steward away from me?

 

Saturday (Luke 16) The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all these things and sneered at him. And he said to them, “You justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts; for what is of human esteem is an abomination in the sight of God.

 

Saints of the Week

 

October 30: Dominic Collins, S.J., priest and martyr (1566-1602), was a Jesuit brother who was martyred in his native Ireland. He became a professional solider in the Catholic armies of Europe after the Desmond Rebellion was put down in 1583. He joined the Jesuits in 1584 at Santiago de Compostela and was sent back to Ireland in 1601 with a Spanish contingent. He was captured, tried for his faith, and sentenced to death.

 

October 31: Alphonsus Rodriguez, S.J. (1532-1617) was widowed at age 31. When his three children died, Alphonsus joined the Jesuits as a lay brother at age 40 after attempting to complete the rigors of study. He was sent to the newly opened college in Majorca where he served as a porter for 46 years. His manner of calling people to sanctification was extraordinary. He served obediently and helped others to focus on their spiritual lives.

 

October 31: All Hallows Eve (evening) owes its origins to a Celtic festival that marked summer's end. The term was first used in 16th century Scotland. Trick or treating resembles the late medieval practice of souling when poor people would go door to door on Hallomas (November 1) receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day (November 2.)

 

November 1: All Saints Day honors the countless faithful believers - living and dead - who have helped us along in our faith. Our liturgical calendar is filled with canonized saints, but we have many blesseds and minor saints who no longer appear on it. We have local saints across the world. We have many people who live Gospel values who we appreciate and imitate. We remember all of these people on this day.

 

November 2: All Souls Day is the commemoration of the faithful departed. November is known as All Souls Month. We remember those who died as we hasten towards the end of the liturgical year and the great feast of Christ the King. As a tradition, we have always remembered our dead as a way of keeping them alive to us and giving thanks to God for their lives. 

 

November 3: Rupert Mayer, S.J., priest (1876-1945), resisted the Nazi government and died while saying Mass of a stroke. In 1937, he was placed in protective custody and was eventually released when he agreed that he would no longer preach.

 

November 3: Martin de Porres, religious (1579-1639) was a Peruvian born of a Spanish knight and a Panamanian Indian woman. Because he was not pure blood, he lost many privileges in the ruling classes. He became a Dominican and served the community in many menial jobs. He was known for tending to the sick and poor and for maintaining a rigorous prayer life.

 

November 4: Charles Borromeo, bishop (1538-1584), was made Bishop of Milan at age 22. He was the nephew of Pope Pius IV. He was a leading Archbishop in the Catholic Reformation that followed the Council of Trent. During a plague epidemic, Borromeo visited the hardest hit areas so he could provide pastoral care to the sick.

 

November 5: All Saints and Blessed of the Society of Jesus are remembered by Jesuits on their particularized liturgical calendar. We remember not only the major saints on the calendar, but also those who are in the canonization process and hold the title of Blessed. We pray for all souls of deceased Jesuits in our province during the month by using our necrology (listing of the dead.)

 

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• October 30, 1638. On this day, John Milton, the great English poet, dined with the Fathers and students of the English College in Rome. 
• October 31, 1602. At Cork, the martyrdom of Dominic Collins, an Irish brother, who was hanged, drawn, and quartered for his adherence to the faith. 
• November 1, 1956. The Society of Jesus was allowed in Norway. 
• November 2, 1661. The death of Daniel Seghers, a famous painter of insects and flowers. 
• November 3, 1614. Dutch pirates failed to capture the vessel in which the right arm of Francis Xavier was being brought to Rome. 
• November 4, 1768. On the feast of St Charles, patron of Charles III, King of Spain, the people of Madrid asked for the recall of the Jesuits who had been banished from Spain nineteen months earlier. Irritated by this demand, the king drove the Archbishop of Toledo and his Vicar General into exile as instigators of the movement. 
• November 5, 1660. The death of Alexander de Rhodes, one of the most effective Jesuit missionaries of all time. A native of France, he arrived in what is now Vietnam in 1625.