The beginning of Luke chapter nineteen recounts the conversion of Zacchaeus. A change of heart that had led him to return four times what he had stolen from the poor.
Thus, by receiving the Lord, salvation had found a home in his house.
Francis, like Zacchaeus, was also small in stature and wanted to see Jesus.
He had climbed the sycamore of his false securities, and Jesus tells him to come down from the world of self-will and climb the hill of evangelical freedom, giving what he had to the poor.
The moment he met Christ, he realised that salvation, the clarity of living, had entered his inner house.
The Sources document these interesting historical events:
"Since, however, as the whole of Scripture says: 'When a man is finished, then he begins, and when he is consummated, he will work' - one saw his spirit become more ready in his infirm flesh.
So vivid was his love for the salvation of souls, and his thirst to win them to God, that, no longer having the strength to walk, he rode out into the countryside on a donkey.
Often his brethren, with sweet insistence, invited him to restore his infirm and too weak body a little with medical care, but he, whose spirit was continually turned to heaven, declined the invitation each time, since he only wished to be untied from his body to be with Christ" (FF 490).
And again: 'For he said that nothing is more important than the salvation of souls, and he proved this very often by the fact that the only-begotten of God deigned to hang on the cross for souls [...].
He did not consider himself a Friend of Christ if he did not love the souls He loved' (FF 758).
Saved, he sought to save; healed, he wanted to heal!
"Zacchaeus, hasten down, for today I must remain in your house" (Lk 19:5b)
Tuesday 33rd wk in O.T. (Lk 19,1-10)
