Daily Gospel Reflection
Join the Notre Dame family of faith. Receive God’s Word and a unique reflection in your inbox each day.
November 3, 2019
Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich.
He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way.
When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him.
All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.”
Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”
On my first day of freshman orientation, our rector introduced us to Sorin Hall with the message of putting “the relationship before the rule.” That line has stuck with me, and it captures so much of the New Testament, including this gospel.
From a rule-based perspective, the story of Zacchaeus gets it backwards. As the chief tax collector, Zacchaeus is a known sinner. He shows some interest in Jesus, climbing a tree to get a better look. Jesus responds to Zacchaeus’ small gesture with an enormous one, embracing him and desiring to stay at his house. Only then does Zacchaeus repent of his sins. To the crowd, it makes no sense that Zacchaeus would receive Jesus’ loving embrace before offering repentance. This has clear echoes, earlier in Luke, of the prodigal son’s return and the dutiful son’s resentment of the father’s offer of unearned mercy.
But Jesus came “to seek and to save what was lost.” In the Old Testament, the Lord sought to reconcile his people to himself by providing them with the Law. We know how miserably we can fail at following even the simplest rules. In the New Testament, knowing that we, his people, cannot save ourselves, the Father sends his Son as salvation for all. Despite our many transgressions, God is eager to embrace us with the love of a father. In this, God plainly places the relationship before the rule.
As sinners who repeatedly fail to avoid the temptation of sin (try though we might), we know that we cannot ever truly merit salvation. And yet, God’s mercy makes salvation possible, to which we might say, “life’s not fair, and thank God for that.”
Prayer
Lord Jesus, come, stay at our house! Interrupt our lives. Turn everything upside down! Rouse us out of our humdrum torpor, our apathy, our complacency. Surprise us with your nearness so much so that we, like Zacchaeus, will climb the tallest tree just to get the slightest glimpse of your face. Prepare our hearts to receive you with love. Amen.
Saint of the Day
St. Martin de Porres was born into great disadvantage yet, with his great perseverance, and even greater faith became a beloved wonder-worker of Peru.
He was born in 1579 in Lima—his father, Don Juan de Porres, was a Spanish knight who took Martin’s mother, Ana Velazquez a freed slave from Panama, as a mistress. Ana had two children by Don Juan—Martin, and his sister, Juana, who were looked down upon and mocked for inheriting their mother’s dark features.
When Don Juan abandoned the family, Ana was left to raise their children on her own. She struggled to support the family by doing laundry, and they experienced great poverty. She had to commit Martin to the care of a school for a few years and then placed him in an apprenticeship with a barber to learn medicine and surgery.
Martin spent hours in prayer during nights and heard a call to dedicate his life to God in religious life. By Peruvian law, people of African or indigenous heritage were not allowed to become full members of religious orders. Because his mother was a freed slave, Martin was unjustly barred from entering religious life. When he was fifteen, Martin approached the Dominican monastery in Lima to become a donado—a volunteer who took on menial labor and lived with the community. He was, essentially, the community's servant boy.
Martin worked with a willing heart and took upon himself the work of several servants, tending the laundry and doing kitchen work. Increasingly, Martin was given more and more responsibility. The community entrusted him with distributing food and money to the poor, and he was allowed to use his medical training to assist the sick. At times, the food he gave out seemed to increase miraculously—he fed 160 people every day—and his medical care would sometimes lead to surprising cures and healings: miraculous cures were attributed to him, even when he only offered a simple drink of water.
Eventually, Martin was allowed to become a fully-professed Dominican brother. Out of humility, Martin declined to seek ordination to the priesthood. Once, when the monastery faced serious debts, he offered to be sold as a slave to raise money, saying, “I am only a poor mulatto. I am the property of the order—sell me.” To their credit, the order did not take him up on his offer.
Martin wanted to become a foreign missionary but was not allowed to leave the monastery, so he became a missionary in his own city of Lima. He established an orphanage and hospital for abandoned children and reached out to care for slaves who were taken from Africa and being unloaded in Peru after a miserable journey. Martin often went into the city to care for the sick.
One day, as Martin passed through the city, he came upon an old man, nearly naked, begging and covered with sores. When the man stretched his hand out, Martin took it and led the man back to the monastery, offering to the homeless beggar his very own bed. Martin did not fear for his own health—when a dangerous epidemic struck Peru, Martin cared for those who were afflicted, putting his own life at risk. On several occasions, observers saw Martin pass through locked doors to serve those in quarantine.
Martin was a close friend of St. Rose of Lima. Both of them were great healers and Peruvian saints. Martin particularly loved animals—he began a veterinary hospital for dogs and cats and tended to the mice and rats who scampered about the monastery.
Strange miracles accompanied Martin wherever he went—one time, the kneeler he was praying upon burst into flames. Sometimes, during prayer, he was observed levitating, or light would fill the room as he prayed.
St. Martin de Porres is the patron saint of people of mixed race, of hair stylists, public schools, and those who work for public health. Because of his work caring for the poor and oppressed, Martin is honored in this stained glass window from the chapel of Geddes Hall, which houses the Institute for Social Concerns on Notre Dame's campus (shown above). The institute helps more than 1,000 students each year pursue justice education and partners with 550 community organizations to serve in 36 U.S. states and 26 countries. One small relic, a piece of St. Martin de Porres' bone, is part of the reliquary chapel in the Basilica.
St. Martin de Porres, the poor outcast who worked with mercy among the suffering of Peru—pray for us!