4. In order to bring out certain specific aspects of the unique saving dialogue that is sacramental confession, I would like to use the "biblical icon" of the meeting between Jesus and Zacchaeus (cf. Lk 19:1-10).

5. The story, as we know, presents the meeting between Jesus and Zacchaeus as if it happened by chance. Jesus enters Jericho and moves through the city accompanied by the crowd (cf. Lk 19:3). In climbing the sycamore tree, Zacchaeus seems prompted by curiosity alone. At times, God's meetings with man do appear to be merely fortuitous. But nothing that God does happens by chance. Surrounded by a wide variety of pastoral situations, we can sometimes lose heart and motivation because so many Christians pay too little attention to the sacramental life, and even when they do approach the sacraments, they often do so in a superficial way. ...

This is precisely the case of Zacchaeus. Everything that happens to him is amazing. If there had not been, at a certain point, the "surprise" of Christ looking up at him, perhaps he would have remained a silent spectator of the Lord moving through the streets of Jericho.

Jesus would have passed by, not into, his life. Zacchaeus had no idea that the curiosity which had prompted him to do such an unusual thing was already the fruit of a mercy which had preceded him, attracted him and was about to change him in the depths of his heart.

Let us re-read Luke's magnificent account of how Christ behaved: "When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, `Zacchaeus, make haste and come down; for I must stay at your house today'" (Lk 19:5).

Every encounter with someone wanting to go to confession, even when the request is somewhat superficial because it is poorly motivated and prepared, can become, through the surprising grace of God, that "place" near the sycamore tree where Christ looked up at Zacchaeus. ... For Zacchaeus, it must have been an stunning experience to hear himself called by his name, a name which many of his townsmen spoke with contempt. Now he hears it spoken in a tone of tenderness, expressing not just trust but familiarity, insistent friendship. Yes, Jesus speaks to Zacchaeus like an old friend, forgotten maybe, but a friend who has nonetheless remained faithful, and who enters with the gentle force of affection into the life and into the home of his re-discovered friend: "Make haste and come down; for I must stay at your house today" (Lk 19:5).

6. Luke's account is remarkable for the tone of the language: everything is so personal, so tactful, so affectionate! Not only is the text filled with humanity; it suggests insistence, an urgency to which Jesus gives voice as the one offering the definitive revelation of God's mercy. He says: "I must stay at your house", or to translate even more literally: "I need to stay at your house" (Lk 19:5). Following the mysterious road map which the Father has laid out for him, Jesus runs into Zacchaeus along the way. He pauses near him as if the meeting had been planned from the beginning. Despite all the murmuring of human malice, the home of this sinner is about to become a place of revelation, the scene of a miracle of mercy. True, this will not happen if Zacchaeus does not free his heart from the ligatures of egoism and from his unjust and fraudulent ways. But mercy has already come to him as a gratuitous and overflowing gift. Mercy has preceded him!

This is what happens in every sacramental encounter. We must not think that it is the sinner, through his own independent journey of conversion, who earns mercy. On the contrary, it is mercy that impels him along the path of conversion. Left to himself, man can do nothing and he deserves nothing. Before being man's journey to God, confession is God's arrival at a person's home. ...

7. "I must stay at your house". Let us try to penetrate these words still more deeply. They are a proclamation. Before indicating a choice on the part of Christ, they proclaim the will of the Father. Jesus appears as someone with a precise mandate. There is a "law" which he too must observe: the will of the Father which he accomplishes with such love that it becomes his "food" (cf. Jn 4:34). The words which Jesus speaks to Zacchaeus are not just a means of establishing a relationship but the declaration of a plan drawn up by God.

The meeting unfolds against the background of the Word of God, which is one with the Word and the Face of Christ. It is here too that the encounter which is at the heart of the celebration of Penance must begin. ...

To clarify all of this, the "biblical icon" of Zacchaeus provides yet another important cue. In the sacrament, the penitent first meets not "the commandments of God" but, in Jesus, "the God of the commandments". To Zacchaeus, Jesus offers himself: "I must stay at your house". He himself is the gift that awaits Zacchaeus, and he is also "God's law" for Zacchaeus. When we see our encounter with Jesus as a gift, even the most demanding features of the law assume the "lightness" of grace, in line with that supernatural dynamic which prompted Saint Paul to say: "If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law" (Gal 5:18). Every celebration of Penance should cause the soul of the penitent to leap with the same joy that Christ's words inspired in Zacchaeus, who "made haste and came down and received him joyfully" (Lk 19:6).

8.The availability and superabundance of mercy should not however obscure the fact that it is only the premise of salvation, which reaches fulfilment to the extent that it meets a response in the human being. In fact, the forgiveness granted in the Sacrament of Reconciliation is not some external action, a kind of legal "remission of the penalty", but a real encounter of the penitent with God, who restores the bond of friendship shattered by sin. The "truth" of this relationship requires that we welcome God's merciful embrace, overcoming all the resistance caused by sin.

This is what happens in the case of Zacchaeus. Aware that he is now being treated as a "son", he begins to think and act like a son, and this he shows in the way he rediscovers his brothers and sisters. Beneath the loving gaze of Christ, the heart of Zacchaeus warms to love of neighbour. From a feeling of isolation, which had led him to enrich himself without caring about what others had to suffer, he moves to an attitude of sharing. This is expressed in a genuine "division" of his wealth: "half of my goods to the poor". The injustice done to others by his fraudulent behaviour is atoned for by a fourfold restitution: "If I have defrauded any one of anything, I restore it fourfold" (Lk 19:8). And it is only at this point that the love of God achieves its purpose, and salvation is accomplished: "Today salvation has come to this house" (Lk 19:9).

11. With the words of Christ to the Apostles in the Upper Room after the Resurrection, and calling upon the Blessed Virgin Mary, Regina Apostolorum and Regina Pacis, I warmly embrace you all as brothers: Peace, peace to each and every one of you. Happy Easter!