Imagine

Day's Saints

Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Columbanus the Younger, Martyr

Gospel Lk 19:1-10
At that time Jesus came to Jericho and intended to pass through the town.
Now a man there named Zacchaeus,
who was a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man,
was seeking to see who Jesus was;
but he could not see him because of the crowd,
for he was short in stature.
So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus,
who was about to pass that way.
When he reached the place, Jesus looked up and said,
"Zacchaeus, come down quickly,
for today I must stay at your house."
And he came down quickly and received him with joy.
When they saw this, they began to grumble, saying,
"He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner."
But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord,
"Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor,
and if I have extorted anything from anyone
I shall repay it four times over."
And Jesus said to him,
"Today salvation has come to this house
because this man too is a descendant of Abraham.
For the Son of Man has come to seek
and to save what was lost."

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Feast with the Lord and give thanks.

Imagine if the richest politician in Congress did what Zacchaeus did; what a stir there would be. But that is not what people do. If they can press any advantage, they press it until it bleeds and then press it some more.

Rather than sit down in the halls of Congress and decide the important matters of the people, they plot to defraud the people, hiding the evil they have perpetrated against those they trusted, and send away orphans and the poverty stricken and elderly and homeless as if they were criminals. Anyone who does so will not be eastly received into Heaven.

The people of ages past, during the time of great empires were done in by tiny fleas who spread deadly plague across Asia and Europe until at least a quarter of the population was dead. Scientific research says that a sudden cold spell was responsible for the spread of the plague. The fleas that gorge themselves on blood starve to death with a full gut because their meal blocks their internal anatomy, but not before biting human beings and spreading the pathogens far and wide.

The same pathogen exists today in many places in the world, but the circumstances that allowed the sudden outbreak of the horrors that was the black death.

For all our advantages we ought to thank God and praise His Name if we live with plenty and can go our own way without some military oppression casting a pall over everyone.

For all those suffering, do not ask why as if you were to blame, for many who entered eternal happiness thought themselves surely doomed but were embraced in affectionate love by the Lord. Those who perceive faults and blame but who avoid sinning and displeasing the Lord are not by any means doomed, but beloved of the Lord, resting in the Garden of His love.

The enemy seeks to agitate and fill our hearts with fear, and those who spread these evils lose sight of the day of their confinement whence they will never escape. Those who love the Lord, instead praise His Name for they know His goodness and give thanks for His bounty. Listen, and if you hear songs and praise rising up in gloomy darkness, seek out those who rejoice and join then, adding your gratitude to theirs, for the kingdom they approach they will enter without sorrows.