The Salvific Power of the Sacrifice of Jesus

Dear Friend,

In this Sunday’s Gospel we hear Jesus call out to Zacchaeus in a tree: “Come down quickly, for today I must stay in your house.” While the scene is somewhat comical, these words actually preview the words Jesus speaks to his disciples in Luke’s account of the Last Supper a few chapters later: “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer…,” he says, as the meal is about to begin (Lk 22:15).

Note: At Zacchaeus’s house, Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem; with his disciples he has arrived there. Therein lies the difference in tone. While his words to Zacchaeus emphasize Jesus’s desire to seek out the “lost” - as a tax collector Zacchaeus would certainly have been a “lost cause” in the eyes of the strictly religious - the words of Jesus to his disciples carry the ominous overtones of his impending passion and death. In both, Jesus’s desire is clear and strong.  

Significantly, Pope Francis begins his recent letter on the liturgy with those same Last Supper words of Jesus. “These words of Jesus,” he writes, “are the crevice through which we are given the surprising possibility of intuiting the depth of the love of the persons of the Most Holy Trinity for us.” Significantly too, Pope Francis also mentions Zacchaeus as one who reminds us that “the salvific power of the sacrifice of Jesus, his every word, his every gesture, glance, and feeling reaches us through the celebration of the sacraments” (11). 

As we renew our understanding and love of the Eucharist this weekend in our workshop with Paul Ford, we begin a profound reflection together on the gift of the one who desires to enter our sacred home here at the Mission.

Gratefully,

Fr. Dan ofm, Pastor