I fell in love with the beauty of the creature I had made
Thirty First Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)
There is evident joy in the Lord’s words to Zacchaeus after he had declared that he was prepared to give half his property to the poor and pay back four times the amount to anyone who he had cheated.
The Lord declares: “Today salvation has come to this house”. Jesus recognises that a grace has flowed upon the heart of Zacchaeus and he wishes to completely turn his life around.
Then Jesus reveals what lies at the heart of all his encounters with people: “the Son of Man has come to seek out and save what was lost”. His focus is on those who are far from God.
We read in the three parables given in Chapter 15 of St Luke’s Gospel which celebrate the mercy of God that there is more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner than over ninety-nine people who do not need to repent (Lk 15:7).
We are told that the angels in heaven rejoice when one sinner repents. It is as though heaven looks down on the earth with a longing that souls return to union with God. Heaven is oriented towards conversion.
We can think of other moments in the public ministry of the Lord when conversion takes place. For example, the Samaritan woman at the well. After her conversation with Jesus she leaves Jesus to announce to her village that they should come and see this man who has told her everything she had ever done (Jn 4:39). She is a changed woman and wants others to discover what she has discovered.
In the story in John, chapter 8, of the woman caught in adultery, we can easily imagine the relief when she senses the flow of mercy descending upon her. She knew that she was forgiven and the final words of the Lord, “Go and sin no more” would have been all she needed to resolve to live a new life (see Jn 8:11).
Encounters with Jesus were encounters with mercy. They were moments when the person felt so loved that they could abandon their sinful ways. They were set free and could live a new life.
St John understood well that the purpose of the coming of Jesus was not to condemn but to save: “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that through him the world might be saved” (Jn 3:17). God is in the business of conversion so that salvation can come upon people.
Thus, when Jesus announces at the commencement of his public ministry that we must repent, he is not issuing harsh words of criticism and condemnation, but offering words of hope. In the eyes of God we are never rejected but called forth to new life.
St Catherine of Siena was one of the most extraordinary women of the Middle Ages. She lived in the fourteenth century. She was a mystic and dictated what she heard God say to her in mystical visions. The book of these revelations is entitled simply, Dialogue.
In one place we read:
O dearest daughter, I have determined to show my mercy and loving kindness to the world, and I choose to provide for mankind all that is good. But man, ignorant, turns into a death-giving thing what I gave in order to give him life. Not only ignorant, but cruel: cruel to himself. But still I go on providing. For this reason I want you to know: whatever I give to man, I do it out of my great providence. So it was that when, by my providence, I created man, I looked into myself and fell in love with the beauty of the creature I had made – for it had pleased me, in my providence, to create man in my own image and likeness. (Dialogue 134)
Despite human beings turning from the God who created them, God would not abandon them. As the words of the Dialogue say, “I looked into myself and fell in love with the beauty of the creature I had made”.
God looks at each of us with love, a love beyond our imagining. From this love mercy flows that we might be healed and set free.
How can we not turn to God in our sin? How can we hide in the fear of being condemned? Turn to God. Confess your sin. Let the mercy and love of God flow upon you. Thus, will Christ say to you: “Today salvation has come to this house”.
Archbishop Julian Porteous
Sunday, 30 October 2022