February 28 Eating with sinners and tax collectors
The Scribes and the Pharisees are asking Jesus why he is eating with sinners and tax collectors? Could it be that these people were the only ones to accept him? Maybe they were the only ones who invited him. Jesus makes it clear that it is for the sinners and tax collectors that he came. They are the ones in need of healing. If the only qualification for coming and eating with Jesus is that the person be a sinner, then we are definitely invited. We meet the requirements. Everytime we gather for Mass, we are there with Jesus Christ. The only difference today is that when we gather to be with the Lord, it is to eat his Body and drink his Blood. By doing so we proclaim his death and resurrection until he returns again in glory. This is the “medicine of immortality” of which St. Ignatius of Antioch speaks.
Thanks be to Jesus Christ for coming to be with us and teach us that the Father is merciful and is willing to take us back if we only repent. Thanks be to Jesus Christ for dying for us on the cross that the disease of sin and death will not have the last word.
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