Saturday, 29th February, Saturday after Ash Wednesday.

Step by step guidance better than the GPS.

“The Lord will guide you always.” (Isaiah 58: 11).

Brethren, you know without doubt that the Bible is God’s precious manual for our life. Will you carelessly discard the manual of an expensive computer software or How to use booklet of a medical equipment on which your life depends? Every single day, the Church celebrates the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Perfect Sacrifice. The Church uses the same Scriptures inspired by the Holy Spirit organized in a lectionary everywhere in the world.

What I am about to reveal to you may not be a secret for many. During the holy Season of Lent, the Church pulls out the best and the most powerful Scriptures for our consumption. This is because God Himself promises that Lent is the favorable Season to bless us.

Before the era of GPS navigation, being a roaming salesman in a large city was a very challenging task. But I discovered God’s promise: “The Lord will guide you always.” (Isaiah 58: 11). Things changed for me. All I needed to activate this promise was a short prayer: “My God, I can’t find my way to the client’s place. I need this sale desperately. Please help me O God.” Again and again, the Lord has led me like the three magis to where I needed to be.

Today Jesus welcomes into the group of His close friends a man who was regarded as a public sinner. Matthew, in fact, not only handled money deemed impure because of its provenance from people foreign to the People of God, but he also collaborated with an alien and despicably greedy authority, whose tributes, moreover, could be arbitrarily determined. This is why several times the Gospels link “tax collectors and sinners” as well as “tax collectors and prostitutes”.

A first fact strikes one based on these references: Jesus does not exclude anyone from His friendship. Indeed, precisely while He is at table in the home of Matthew-Levi, in response to those who expressed shock at the fact that He associated with people who had so little to recommend, He made the important statement: “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners”.

—The good news of the Gospel consists precisely in this: offering God’s grace to the sinner! Those who seem to be the farthest from holiness can even become a model of the acceptance of God’s mercy…