I’d have to say that the Annunciation is my favorite Mystery of the Rosary, in the sense that, whatever be the Mysteries of the Rosary for the day – like today, Tuesday, we pray the Sorrowful Mysteries – I try to meditate on the Annunciation too. For example, when I go jogging in the morning, immersed in the beauty of creation, I like to put myself in that moment of the beginning of the New Creation when the Angel Gabriel came to the young Mary.
That moment when our All-powerful and Loving Lord looked upon His handmaid, and she looked at Him, returning His gaze of love with love.
Then, in my mind, I place others that I love in that moment, in that gaze. Perhaps someone plagued by anxiety, or someone who is far from God and so is lost and without hope.
I ask Our Lady to bring them into that look of love. Lifting that person up to the Lord, I pray that he receive and respond to the grace to open his heart to Christ. This is the great miracle we all need!
This encounter between Zacchaeus and the Lord demonstrates that this divine look of love is powerful indeed. The conversion of Zacchaeus is greater miracle than a physical healing!
The Gospel text makes it clear that he was a sinner. A chief tax collector for the Romans, making money off the hardship of the poor: he would have to have been a corrupt manipulator to get where he was. Hated by others. It is interesting to note that he was "short" which is another way he was "looked down upon."
We can imagine that inside he was lonely and hurting. Maybe he hated himself...
Along comes Jesus, in Jericho, beginning the last leg of his journey to Jerusalem where He will sacrifice Himself for love. He looks up and sees Zacchaeus.
Zacchaeus, hurting inside from his sin and loneliness knows his own need, and accepts that look of love from Jesus. He lets it into his heart and his being.
The power of that look of love immediately healed and transformed that lonely sinner who then put himself to doing the work of the Lord.
Lord, look on each of us as you looked on Zacchaeus. Holy Mother Mary, help us and those we love to open our hearts to that healing gaze.
