You're listening to Catholic Sprouts, the daily podcast. Today is also the feast of the presentation of Mary.

Tradition tells us that after Mary was born, her parents, St. Anne and St. Joachim, took her to the temple and dedicated her back to God in Thanksgiving for her birth.

Now, we are in November, so we are still under the patronage of St. Martin de Porres, who is challenging us to remember to pray for our beloved dead and all the

souls in purgatory. So if you will join me, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the

Holy Spirit, amen. In your hands, O Lord, we humbly entrust our brothers and sisters. In this life, you embrace them with your tender love.

Deliver them now from every evil and bid them eternal rest. The old order has passed away.

Welcome them into paradise, where there will be no sorrow, no weeping or pain, but fullness of peace and joy

with your son and the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen. So this week, as we here in the United

States prepare for Thanksgiving, we are going to talk about something that is so central, so

fundamental to our journey to becoming a saint. And that is encounter. Encounter. Now, sometimes

we hear this talked about in faith formation classes or at Mass, but encounter is the beginning of our

journey as followers of Jesus. An encounter is when we come and encounter Jesus truly and authentically.

When we come into his presence,

and an encounter is the beginning of a relationship with Jesus.

Now remember, one of the ways to define what a saint is,

is a friend of Jesus, someone who makes time for Jesus,

who allows their lives to be shaped by this relationship with Jesus. And that relationship

begins with an encounter. So today we're going to define what an encounter is by looking at a character from the gospel,

a short little man named Zechius. Now a couple weeks ago, we had this for the gospel reading on

Sunday. Zekees is one of my favorite characters from the gospel. So here's a little about Zechius. Zichias was very,

very short. In fact, that's how the gospel describes him. So if they're going to call someone

short, you better believe he was very short. And he was also a public sinner. He was a tax collector.

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