How bad was a tax collector during Jesus’ time? He was an extortionist in broad daylight. Worse, he was a first-class traitor. He robbed his people and collected for their oppressors. The Talmud even teaches, “It is righteous to lie and deceive a tax collector.” Tax collectors weren’t permitted to testify in a court of law because they were liars and took bribes. They could never enter a synagogue or a temple. But Jesus dined with them!

I used to have similar “justified hatred” for a theater owner, who showed X-rated movies to high schoolers. I prayed many years for the closure of his building. But it didn’t happen. Then I changed my prayer. Instead of the closure, I prayed, “Lord, may the owner of this building, whom You love, get to know You and accept Your forgiveness. May he be transformed by Your Holy Spirit.” Then one day, the X-rated movies were gone. The building owner became an avid lover of Jesus.

God delights in and answers prayers with the compassion of Jesus. Jon Escoto (jonmaris@yahoo.com)

reflect

Are you ranting or praying? The difference is the compassion of Jesus.

Jesus, teach me how to pray with the heart of compassion for the people You love. Amen.

St. Stephen of Obazine, martyr, pray for us.

The Scriptures remind us about our responsibility to help less fortunate people. None of us are exempted from this humanitarian duty. Let us always share whatever blessings we have received and embrace the call to love both God and neighbor. Love’s nature simply seeks to reach out to others in whatever situation—it assumes and demands nothing. May we learn to love selflessly like how God loves us. 

⁹ Thus says the Lord: If you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation, and malicious speech; ¹⁰ if you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; then light shall rise for you in the darkness, and the gloom shall become for you like midday. ¹¹ Then the Lord will guide you always and give you plenty even on the parched land. He will renew your strength, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring whose water never fails. ¹² The ancient ruins shall be rebuilt for your sake, and the foundations from ages past you shall raise up. “Repairer of the breach,” they shall call you, “Restorer of ruined homesteads.” ¹³ If you hold back your foot on the sabbath from following your own pursuits on my holy day; if you call the sabbath a delight, and the Lord’s holy day honorable; if you honor it by not following your ways, seeking your own interests, or speaking with malice, ¹⁴ then you shall delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth. I will nourish you with the heritage of Jacob, your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. 

Responsorial Psalm | Psalm 86:1-2, 3-4, 5-6

R: Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth. 

¹ Incline your ear, O Lord; answer me, for I am afflicted and poor. ² Keep my life, for I am devoted to you; save your servant who trusts in you. You are my God. (R) ³ Have mercy on me, O Lord, for to you I call all the day. ⁴ Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. (R) ⁵ For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in kindness to all who call upon you. ⁶ Hearken, O Lord, to my prayer and attend to the sound of my pleading. (R) 

 Gospel | Luke 5:27-32

Love never asks what you get in return when you give. More than an emotion, to love is to act with discernment. This attitude of the heart is hard to develop as it is the opposite of everything the world teaches us. The world is motivated by “investment return benefits” and very little else. Even donations to disaster funds depend on whether they are tax deductible or not. God’s love demands nothing and gives everything freely. Let us imitate His way of loving. 

Gospel Acclamation

I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked man, says the Lord, but rather in his conversion, that he may live. 

²⁷ Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” ²⁸ And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him. ²⁹ Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were at table with them. ³⁰ The Pharisees and their scribes complained to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” ³¹ Jesus said to them in reply, “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. ³² I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.” 

Read the Bible in one year! Read REVELATION 11 - 14 today.

Every day, we are confronted with choices. We make decisions without deliberately considering their implications. We operate on default mode. The Lenten season allows us to pause and evaluate the choices we make daily: Are they life-giving or death-wielding?

The choice for life is a choice that facilitates goodness, compassion, and love. To be genuinely alive means to choose not just one’s own life and comfort, but more importantly, to choose to give life and comfort to others and all of creation. When we use our life and resources to enable our community and the rest of creation to thrive, we also thrive. To choose life is to come from a perspective of security, of being blessed, of being loved, of having more than enough. We receive and then we give because we feel we do not deserve what we have received. To choose life is to be humble enough to see that what we have is undeserved, so we become grateful. This gratitude facilitates generosity, which makes us even more humble, grateful, and generous. And the virtuous cycle continues.

The choice for death is a choice of choosing ourselves and our comforts first at the expense of others and the rest of creation. To wield death (even when we continue to breathe) is to put our personal priorities first even to the point of destroying the world around us, disrupting relationships of care, and consuming and wasting resources for personal (even our own family’s) pleasure. To choose death is to come from a perspective of being insecure, of lack, and of deprivation. To choose death is to think we deserve to get everything we want and to be bitter when we do not get them. It then breeds greed and selfishness—that me-first attitude. And the vicious cycle continues. Fr. Bros Flores, SJ

reflection question

Which cycle are you caught in at this point in your life? 

Lord Jesus, may I constantly realize how blessed I am to have You in my life so that I may never feel any sense of deprivation that could lead me to hoard and choose death unconsciously. Amen.

Today, I pray for: ________________________________________