Just stand your ground! 

This is an old Irish proverb I have not yet seen printed on one of those sugar sachets! “Is fearr rith maith ná droch seasamh!”. A good run is better than a poor stand! 

In today’s world many have to just stand and take what comes to them: that they can’t sing, can’t act, can’t cook, can’t run a business or have the ability to answer simple questions.

It is an awful humiliation to be made stand in full view of people who judge and dismiss us.

It is happening in today’s gospel. We can see the people point a finger at Zacchaeus: “he has gone to stay at a sinner’s house.”

But we have the reassuring line: “But Zacchaeus stood his ground.”

Imagine that when you are being singled out and judged that you are in fact only standing before the Lord.

Likewise, imagine that when you are making a judgement of a sister or brother that he or she is also standing before the Lord who simply wants to say: “Hurry, because I must stay at your house today.”

Fr. Michael McCullagh, C.M.

4th November, 2007