In St. Luke’s Gospel, Zacchaeus climbs a tree in order to see Christ above the crowd (Luke 19:1-10). It is an unexpected image: a wealthy official perched among the branches like a curious boy. Yet ...

Luke includes in his Gospel an account found nowhere else in the Gospel tradition, a story which fits well with many of the Lucan themes regarding the value and danger of wealth and possessions – not ...

It is the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time and today’s gospel reading is about Zacchaeus, the tax collector, written in Luke 19:1-10. As we learned from this story, Zacchaeus was not just a simple tax ...

No matter how it started, Zacchaeus got the word that Jesus was coming through and he made ready on his own terms. Zacchaeus planned to see without being seen. Something must have been going on inside ...

In the ceremony of his naming, Zacchaeus was given his name as a promise. Luke’s story is about how Zacchaeus became ZaKaI, became what he was promised to be. (Just so, in the baptismal rite we are ...

This is French artist James Tissot’s depiction of Zacchaeus in a sycamore-fig tree awaiting Jesus’ arrival. Tissot lived from 1836-1902. (Courtesy Photo) Zacchaeus was a very short man who became ...

I knew the tale of Zacchaeus as we’ve all heard it—a short bad man climbs a sycamore tree to get a glimpse of Jesus—until I heard Charlie Cook preach on it one Sunday in the mid-’70s. Charlie was a ...

There is an atmosphere in two of today's readings that Catholic blogger Todd Flowerday calls "an interlude of mercy" (catholicsensibility.wordpress.com/2014/08/17 ...

Last week, Jesus taught us the parable of the Pharisee and the publican. As a result of how they prayed, the latter left the Temple justified, the former not. In last week’s essay, I suggested that ...