DGeMs- Daily Gospel eMessage
Dear Friend in the Lord,
Sin and Sinners: In today’s Gospel, the Pharisees condemned Jesus for dining with tax collectors and sinners. Jesus replied that it is the sick that needs a doctor. Jesus condemns sin, but reaches out to sinners with compassion and does not condemn them. Pray for the grace to distinguish between sin and sinner.
Fr Philip Heng, S.J.
Matthew 9:9-13
As Jesus was walking on from there he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him.
Now while he was at table in the house it happened that a number of tax collectors and sinners came to sit at the table with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your master eat with tax collectors and sinners?’
When he heard this he replied, ‘It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. Go and learn the meaning of the words: Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice. And indeed I came to call not the upright, but sinners.’