Jesus addressed this parable
to those who were convinced of their own righteousness
and despised everyone else.
“Two people went up to the temple area to pray;
one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector.
The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself,
‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity —
greedy, dishonest, adulterous — or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week,
and I pay tithes on my whole income.’
But the tax collector stood off at a distance
and would not even raise his eyes to heaven
but beat his breast and prayed,
‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’
I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former;
for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,
and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Luke 18:9-14

Humility, that most misunderstood of virtues, saves us from the theatrical pretensions to which all of us are drawn. Who hasn’t boasted occasionally of something they’ve accomplished, or been grateful, even in the secret of their hearts, that they aren’t in the class of people who they view to be beneath them as regards intellectual capacity, religious actions, cultural possibilities, or moral behavior?

The Pharisee praying in the synagogue was not exaggerating. He most probably did keep the law for that is what Pharisees did: they followed the legal traditions ascribed to the traditions of the Fathers. However, the special kind of prayer called the berakhah or blessing, so much a part of Judaism, is meant to be an expression of wonder at how blessed God is. For example, a typical blessing Jews recite before eating or drinking would acknowledge and bless God as the creator of the food and drink about to be enjoyed. The blessing for bread praises God as the one who brings forth bread from the earth. The blessing for wearing new clothing praises God as the one who clothes the naked.

These blessing prayers make clear that our true dignity lies infinitely more in God that in ourselves and can only be reached when we are united to God. The first truth that leads us to a great wonder in God’s glory and his goodness to us we find in Genesis. We are created from nothing. This very gift of an eternal existence make us utterly dependent on God and acutely aware of our own unworthiness. In love God created us and in love God upholds us. We have no being of our own but what we receive from God. Blessing God for his glory is in order!

The tax collector here is an image of all those who realize that they are dependent on God, gifted with life and an eternal purpose whose object is God, and that they can never come to completion without being perfectly united to God. In this case, sorrow for sins, even the grieving that comes from knowing that we will never be all that we were created to be, is appropriate and actually a necessary part of our relationship with God. Does this also sound familiar? We begin every Mass with a Penitential Act followed by the Glory to God. We take our place once again as God’s dear children so in need of his grace to live lives of  truth and goodness and beauty.

So today, bless and thank God as the source of every good in your life, acknowledge your dependence on God for reaching the final completion of your life in Christ Jesus, sorrow for your sins and never stop believing in God’s love for you.

Image: Aberdeen Art Gallery, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Praying with this Passage of Scripture