Like the inspirational 90-year-old Eleazar, we each make choices relative to our faith. Ours, thankfully, are not typically matters of life and death, but they are still consequential.

If one is pro-life, some people will regard us with disgust. If one is pro-life and against the death penalty, the response can be “you are so naive.” If one is pro-life, against the death penalty, concerned about climate change, and inspired by Pope Francis’s ” Laudato Si’ and Laudate Deum to care for our common home, we might be accused of minimizing concern for the unborn. How about adding a concern about the current treatment of migrants, the demonizing of LGBTQ+ or Trans people? Being a peace-maker? All faith-based choices!

Our new Pope Leo has recently said, “Someone who says, ‘I’m against abortion but says I am in favor of the death penalty’ is not really pro-life,” or “someone who says I’m against abortion, but I agree with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States,’ I don’t know if that’s pro-life.”

(As I am writing) Pope Leo has just issued an Apostolic Exhortation, Dilexi te (“I have loved you”). He decided to finish an exhortation started by the late Pope Francis. Among many statements re-emphasizing the Church’s “preferential option for the poor,” he writes, “God has a special place in his heart for those who are discriminated against and oppressed, and he asks us, his church, to make a decisive and radical choice in favor of the weakest.”

In today’s Gospel, we have our divine model, Jesus, inviting the reviled tax collector Zacchaeus for lunch. He bade him to come down from his perch in a tree with the words, “This day I shall stay in your house.”

Whose home might we visit today?

Let Us Pray:

Merciful God, we pray for all who have died after leaving their homelands. Wake us from the slumber of indifference, open our eyes to their suffering, and free us from the insensitivity born of worldly comfort and self-centeredness. Inspire us, as nations, communities, and individuals, to see that those who come to our shores are our brothers and sisters. May we share with them the blessings we have received from your hand, and recognize that together, as one human family, we are all migrants, journeying in hope to you, our true home, where every tear will be wiped away, where we will be at peace and safe in your embrace. (Pope Francis’ Prayer for Immigrants – adapted)