October 30, 2022 - Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

Our first reading this week from the Book of Wisdom sets before us some important reminders: 1) The Lord cares for every person and thing. (“For you love all things…and loathe nothing you have made.”) 2) Each of us exists because the Lord created us and keeps us alive. (“How could a thing remain, unless you willed it; or be preserved had it not been called forth by you?”) 3) God is always merciful, willing to overlook our sins that we might once again be in right relationship (“You have mercy on all…and you overlook people’s sins that they may repent.”) Yet another important reminder comes in our Gospel story about Jesus and Zacchaeus. It ends by saying, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.” Scripture scholar William Barclay reminds us that in the New Testament the word “lost” does not mean damned or doomed. It simply means “in the wrong place”. Persons are lost when they have wandered away from our loving God, and are found when they once again take their rightful place as a daughter or son in God’s family. Fr. John Mark Ettensohn, OMI