Gospel Reflection for Saturday, March 8, 2025

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.