First Reading: Isaiah 58:9b-14
If you bestow your bread on the hungry, then light shall rise for you in the darkness.
Thus says the Lord:
If you remove from your midst oppression,
false accusation and malicious speech;
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;
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.
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.”
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–
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: Ps 86:1-2, 3-4, 5-6
R./ Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth.
Incline your ear, O Lord; answer me,
for I am afflicted and poor.
Keep my life, for I am devoted to you;
save your servant who trusts in you.
You are my God.
R./ Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth.
Have mercy on me, O Lord,
for to you I call all the day.
Gladden the soul of your servant,
for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
R./ Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth.
For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,
abounding in kindness to all who call upon you.
Hearken, O Lord, to my prayer
and attend to the sound of my pleading.
R./ Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth.
Gospel Reading: Luke 5:27-32
I have not come to call righteous to repentance but sinners.
Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post.
He said to him, “Follow me.”
And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him.
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.
The Pharisees and their scribes complained to his disciples, saying,
“Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
Jesus said to them in reply,
“Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do.
I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.”
Jesus meets with everyone. In fact, he breaks the traditional purity rules of the Jewish world at that time when he sits down to eat (with all the significance that sharing a meal has and which for Christians becomes the Eucharist) with tax collectors and sinners. All of them were considered bad people, individuals a good Jew would avoid contact with. Their sin could contaminate anyone who sat down to eat with them or even touched or interacted with them. In the Jewish mentality of that time, God could not accept impurity. To relate to Him, one had to be pure. Only the pure, those who followed all the rules, could approach God without fear of sudden death.
But Jesus breaks with that tradition. God approaches everyone. God excludes no one. All are His sons and daughters. All are the work of His hands. All are loved by Him. All. All. This needs to be repeated to convince ourselves of it. Because too often in the history of the Church, we have also sought this purity and excluded those we considered bad. Because we think they are in sin (something that, interestingly, has always been said in the history of the Church to belong to the person’s conscience, beyond what may be objectively grave) or because they have a certain way of thinking.
Recently, I heard of a priest who denied communion to a homosexual man. Then there was a bishop who defended his stance, saying that to receive communion, one must be in a state of grace. How can someone judge if another person is in a state of grace before God? What kind of examination would be required for all who approach to receive communion? I also encountered someone who said that the Church should only help its own in charity. Something like requiring a certificate of Christian faith to assist a person in need. How horrifying!
We cannot exclude anyone but must welcome everyone. Just as Jesus did. Conversion is a personal process that none of us has the right to judge.
Fernando Torres, cmfIntroduction
Jesus came to call sinners. It is they who need him, not so much the just or the righteous. It is the sinners who need healing. We are among them, and so we need healing. The Pharisees considered themselves just, but there was little mercy in them; their hearts were dried-up. It is mercy that Jesus wants, not sacrifices. Jesus comes to encounter Levi-Matthew. Just a call from Jesus and Matthew leaves everything behind: his desk, his past. He is a new man, created anew by Christ. He lives now for the future. His converted heart will turn to others too, as he becomes an apostle. In this Eucharist, Jesus comes to call us and to change us; he sits at table with us, as he did with Levi-Matthew.
Opening Prayer
Lord, our God, merciful Father,
when you call us to repentance,
you want us to turn to people
and to build up peace and justice among us all.
According to your promise,
let us become, with your strength,
lights for those in darkness,
water for those who thirst,
rebuilders of hope and happiness for all.
May we thus, become living signs
of your love and loyalty,
for you are our God for ever.
General Intercessions
– That Christians may experience the joy of receiving forgiveness from God and from forgiving one another, we pray:
– That people entangled in sin and who don’t know how to get out, may encounter Jesus, who came as a healer of hearts, we pray:
– That we may all learn that it is a part of our conversion to turn to people and to bring them justice and love, we pray:
Prayer over the Gifts
Merciful God,
you have sent your Son among us
to eat and drink with us sinners.
May Jesus also look at us intently
and call us to genuine repentance,
and may we be so humble as to recognize
that we are in need of conversion.
Give us the strength to follow Jesus,
who is our Lord for ever.
Prayer after Communion
Lord God, merciful Father,
your Son, Jesus Christ, has touched our hearts
and we are willing to follow him.
But we are weak and frail,
and so we pray you:
May the bread of life and the wine of strength,
which we have taken at the table of your Son,
sustain us on the road to you,
our God for ever.
Blessing
Through Jesus, God creates people anew by forgiving them. He makes an apostle out of a typical sinner, Matthew, the tax collector. As forgiven people, we help God to restore people by our goodness, by helping others. May Almighty God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
