1. Understanding the Gospel.
To understand the Gospel, which teaches us the supernatural truth on how to save our souls, is easier than understanding human politics. Thus understanding the way to salvation as seen in the story of Zachaeus is easier than understanding the politics in the U.S. election. Why? Because it is easier to know the truth than to try to understand lies.
2. Thus we are expected to know the entire truth easily rather than to understand the lies involved in politics. But man, today, seems to be completely ignorant of the truth while at the same time ignorant of the truth behind the lies. The principle behind this is simple. He who does not know the truth will believe all lies. On the other hand, he who knows the truth will not believe the lies.
This is shown in todays Gospel. While Zachaeus did not know the truth he believed all lies. When he came face to face with the truth, he went over and above all lies.
3. Let’s look at the story.
There was a tax collector whose name was Zachaeus. He wanted to see Christ but was short in stature and could not see him. Besides the crowd blocked his view. To compensate for this situation, he looked and climbed a sycamore tree along the route of Christ and waited for him up there.
When Christ passed by the sycamore tree He looked up and commanded Zachaeus; ‘come down for I shall abide in your house.’ Zachaeus went down and proceeded to his house. He gave half his possession to the poor and he other half he paid four times those he had defrauded. Then he served Christ during which the Pharisees criticized Christ for eating with sinners. Seeing this Christ said; ‘salvation has come to this house.’ Let us see the meaning of the acts of Zachaeus.
4. He was short in stature; St. Thomas explained that due to original sin, the human race does not know God and the way that leads to God; man does not see the face of the true God. This explains why most men are pagans or atheists; by nature man cannot know God. Conscious of this fact the Psalmist always prayed that he might see the face of God. And that was what was in the heart of Zachaeus that day; he wanted to see the face of God. But he could not see the face of God because of his inadequate knowledge. His short stature was one reason he could not see Christ. There was another reason why he could not see Christ.
5.He could not see Christ because of the crowd. The crowd represents the worldliness of the humans around him. He was just like them thus he was absorbed with them. He was just a part of that vast sea of humanity. His very humanity is the crowd that prevented him from seeing Christ. Though Christ was also human, He was also Divine, Christ’s humanity was hidden in the crowd of humanity. He was no different from the vast sea of humanity.
But His Divinity can be seen if man, like Zachaeus climb a sycamore tree. Man must rise above the sea of fallen humanity; he must abandon for a moment his humanity and rise above that same humanity to view the Face of Christ. In a moment we shall see how Zachaeus did that. Let us first explain the state of soul of this crowd.
6. The crowd.
Let us see the spiritual state of that crowd because that was the state of the soul of Zachaeus. Then we shall see how Zachaeus was able to rise out of that state that led to his salvation.
The spiritual state of the crowd is the state of the whole world today; including the state of the Catholic Church. When we say the state of the Catholic Church we mean the spiritual state of the Pope, the cardinals, the bishops, the priests…..and as a consequence the state of the laity.
Let’s return to the scene in the garden of Paradise when Adam and Eve was tested by God. After the Fall is the spiritual state of the crowd and of the entire world today. This is a scenario as if the Work of salvation was never done; as if Christ was never born and crucified, as if the Church was never established. It is the reign of original sin in its stark reality. Today’s world symbolized by ‘the crowd’ describes best what is original sin. Let us go back to the story.
The test. God gave Adam and Eve a test. The test consist in a command given to them to obey. All tests of God for all men consist in commands that men must obey. There is no other test. God told Adam and Eve that they may eat of all the trees in the garden of Eden. That is a lot of trees. And being trees created by God and found in Paradise, they must be very good fruit tree.
Except from a tree in the center of the Garden. That was just one tree. They should not eat of that tree; they should not even approach the tree. So here we have two commands; first, to avoid the occasion of sin by not approaching the tree. And secondly, to avoid the sin of eating the forbidden fruit.
Here, we have to note that there was nothing wrong with the tree nor its fruit. After all, the tree was in Paradise so it could not be evil. There was, also, nothing wrong with the fruit. Except that God had given a command not to eat and not even to approach the tree. This distinction is important; that the sin was not in eating the fruit of the tree but in disobeying the command of God. The act of eating the fruit was not the sin; the sin was in disobeying the command of God; the disobedience was externally and visibly expressed in the act of eating the fruit.
Nevertheless the sin was not in the physical act but in the act of the intellect and free will of disobeying the command of God. The sin of Adam and Eve is going against the expressed Will of God and doing what they want as proposed by the devil. Yes, proposed by the devil but freely chosen by Adam and Eve. That is how all temptations go. The devil proposes, the humans choose.
And all holiness goes the same way; God proposes through the Church, humans choose. ‘The crowd’ is the sea of humans who, like Adam and Eve, choses the promptings of the devil. This is the state of original sin. Let us look at the state of the world today.
7. Why did Adam and Eve choose the devil’s suggestion over God’s. Because God’s command is a supernatural command that needs rising to the supernatural level to be obeyed; which at that time Adam and Eve could do. The suggestion of the devil was purely a natural temptation that is easy to do because it was in the same level to human nature. It was a choice between a command in the natural level and a command in the supernatural level. Adam and Eve could obey both at that time. After the fall Adam, Eve and their descendants would not be able to obey supernatural commands.
The crowd today is totally natural. Unable to obey God’s command because they do not even know the commands of Christ.
From Pope Francis down to many priests do not know the commands of Christ; it is evident that such commands are not the basis of their teachings; they are not even mentioned. Pope Francis and the rest of the world are wallowing in original sin. Like Eve, they had chosen to do their own will under the influence of the devil, consciously going against the expressed Will of God.
God said; be faithful to your family. Pope Francis says, you may change your families. God said homosexuality is a despicable sin in the eyes of God. Pope Francis says, welcome them. God says, I am the Lord your God. Pope Francis says, Gaia is the God of the new one religion. The mind of ‘the crowd’ is set to disobey God’s expressed command and follow the proposal of the devil. Now, let us go to the detail of Eve’s behavior.
8. Supernatural vs natural.
God’s command in Paradise was a supernatural command that can only be obeyed by a being raised to the supernatural level. Because Eve had already decided to do her own will, she had descended to the natural level. Suddenly the natural became attractive to her and the supernatural became unattractive to her.
Sensing this because he was an angel, Satan proposed his natural temptation………’to be as god but without God,’ knowing good from evil but without the power to choose good. Eve saw the attractiveness of being a god and of being able to choose between good and evil. But she did not see the catastrophe of excluding God and the inability of choosing good without grace. Her mind was not working well. Then the coup de grace.
Satan tempted her to disobey because the fruit of disobedience was ‘good to eat, fair to the eyes and delightful to behold.’ Frankly, who will not fall for something like that. It looked like a fine cuissine…….to the senses. It was a temptation to please the senses, only; without pleasing the spiritual faculties of mind and will. It was Gnosticism, one of the earliest heresy within the Catholic Church. It has returned with a vengeance and used by the same devil.
9. Pleasing God.
All religions know they have to please their gods. And they are right there. The problem is; who god. Here we begin to have a thousand problems. Since through out history, man is known to have the mis- fortune of always choosing the wrong gods.
At last man played safe. Today he chose the god he knows best. And that is himself. There you have it. Man made himself god and pleased himself as the only god. He fulfilled the old dream of Lucifer, to be like god. Guess from whom that came from? Of course, from Lucifer. It is a temptation to angelic pride, where there no room for humility.
If man must please himself because he thinks he is god, he will need a lot of money to please his every whim. He must be very rich because there is no end to the vice of covetousness. He must possess everything including what belongs to others. But others own it. So he must kill others
Let us stop here for a while and continue to the next posting. In the next post we shall show how all these things are happening right now. We will show how the whole world, from all the leaders of nations together with Pope Francis had become ‘the crowd’ preventing the whole world from seeing Christ and damning everyone to hell……..as the Blessed Virgin prophesied at Fatima. And we shall show what Scriptures and the Fathers of the Church taught us on how to clime the sycamore tree and save our souls.
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