Today Salvation has come to this house

 33rd Tuesday in Ordinary Time.

Today Salvation has come to this house

( Luke 19: 1- 10)

A certain man was very notorious for stealing fashionable shoes from his home town and reselling in other communities where they were quite expensive to make a living. When caught sometimes he was given several punishments but it didn’t stop him from going back to his source of livelihood (stealing shoes). One day, the villagers decided to give him an indelible mark of shame as his punishment,  they bound his hands and foot and with a hot metal imprinted the letters “S T" ( Shoe Thief) on his forehead.

 Everyone in the village knew what it meant and they treated him with disgust. Foodstuff sellers won’t sell to him, and even children trailed behind him on the streets shouting “Shoe thief", only to run away when he turns around. He couldn’t stand it anymore nor could he remove the mark, so he travelled very far away to another town where he resided, involving in honest means of living to avoid reproach. He so changed that everyone in the village knew him as a good man. Years passed, he got married, had kids and lived happily with them to ripe old age. One day a villager and his little boy walked past him and after exchanging greetings. On their way home, the little boy said “papa, I like the man, he’s nice to me and my friends” and his father nodded saying “He’s a good man" The little boy went on to ask “ But papa, why does he have “ST" on his face, what does it mean and his father replied “son, I don’t really know it’s meaning but I know that “ST" is an abbreviation for “Saint".

We’re tagged by what we do, but it changes when we change. Zacchaeus was a ruthless, fraudulent tax collectors with a bad image in the town but all that changed when he met his turning point “Christ". I bet you that ten years from the day he met Christ, keeping to the resolution he made before Christ, many wouldn’t remember how ruthless he used to be, and the evil tag on his personality would change just because he decided to change. We should never let our past ruin our future. When King David killed Uriah after having a sexual affair with his wife, God was so angry that he punished David severely and the child had to die, despite David’s pleading. They both repented and turned new leaves and God forgave them granting that the king who would succeed David (Solomon) would come from the womb of she who was called  adulterous. When you have a soft spot for someone, things they do hardly offends you, even when everyone is screaming you just smile and say, its a simple mistake and when they do some grievous things that you cut off from them,  it takes only a sincere plea from them, and you’ll find yourself helplessly forgiving them. What God has for us, is more than a soft spot it’s massive, that’s why He’s not bent on counting our mistakes, He doesn’t tag us bad, as people around us do, because he knows we have the potency to change, And He keeps seizing opportunities to visit us like He did Zacchaeus. He wants you to understand that “what you did yesterday was who you were,  what you do today is who you are, other people with whatever tag they place on you are just like commentators on a football field, Hence, the power is in your hands to decide what they say about you. 

Now, let’s forget about how great, or how bad you were yesterday,  because that was who you were yesterday. The question is, “Who are you now? Your actions today will tell. Note, it’s normally not difficult to decide to change, the difficulty is in sticking to the decision for the rest of our days because there will be challenges. The way out, is not worrying for the future; just wake up every day deciding  to be good “just for today”.

Prayer: Loving Lord, Give me, today, the grace I need to glorify you with my life. Amen.

SR. MARY OLIVIA, OP. 

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