Tuesday,
11/20/12
At
the beginning the two men in today’s readings were very much alike.
The
first reading presents us with the “Angel of the Church in Laodicea,” whom we
take to be the bishop of that town on the Lycus river in southwestern Turkey. (A
Syrian king had named it after his bride Laodice.) The bishop there had turned
his energies toward making himself comfortable, and he looked forward to staying
comfortable. He was not a particularly evil man, he was just blah. As the Lord
said, “You are neither hot not cold. But, because you are lukewarm I will spew
you out of my mouth.”
In
the same way Zacchaeus in the Gospel had devoted his energies towards making
himself comfortable. He had made the practice of extorting funds from
taxpayers. The difference with him was that he was not determined to stay
self-centered. When he saw the chance of making something of his life, he
climbed a tree, and he told the Lord, “If I have extorted anything from anyone
I will repay them four times over.
St.
Thomas Aquinas in one verse of his Hymn “Pange
Lingua” recorded the opposite results flowing from the way people receive Holy Communion. In English it would be,
“The good receive, the bad receive, with the unequal
results of life or destruction.”
“Summunt bonum, summunt male; Sortem tamen,
inequale: vitus ver interritus.”
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