Saturday in the Third Week of Lent, March 9, 2024

Luke 18, 9-14

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.”

The Lord Jesus knows well that it is difficult for us to look at ourselves with anything like a discerning eye.  We do not examine our motives out of fear for what we might find, and we only analyze our actions for how we might have performed them more effectively.  Even those of us committed to living holy lives fail to see what we need to see.  We need another person to help us.  Priests, men and women religious, and some lay folks go to spiritual directors to help them to see what they are doing.  Jesus himself helps us through the Gospels through critiques such as that which is taken for today’s Gospel Reading.  You and I, reading the words of the Pharisees in the story, easily see the problem of self-righteousness.  But the Lord does not want us to look at the Pharisee, shake our heads, and move on.  He wants us to check ourselves for the fault we find in him.

“The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself.”  Problem A with the Pharisee is that he puts himself on exhibit in the Temple.  Not only does he do this by setting himself in a prominent spot but he prays aloud, listing his imagined virtues.  We do this when we adopt the attitude that when we pray to God or do anything religious, we are doing God a favor.  We are most prone to this when we have gotten into the habit of thinking that everything we do for others is as favors to them on our part.  The reality is that, as Christians, everything we do is an act of service and that we should be glad when we have a chance to serve.  “God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity — greedy, dishonest, adulterous  — or even like this tax collector.”

Problem B is that he compares himself to others.  This is a very common error that we make.  Most of us are competitive practically from birth.  While this may result in certain worldly accomplishments, it gets us into trouble in the spiritual life.  It can turn charitable actions and ascetic practices into the means of outdoing another person rather than in serving God.  There are stories of some men in the early years of the Church selling their possessions and going out to the desert to spend their lives in fasting and prayer, and of some of them falling into competitions of fasting or keeping vigil.  At this point their actions are not about God.  And so we imitate the virtues of the saints without trying to compete with them, and to concentrate and what the Lord’s will is for oneself and not for another person.  

Problem C is his dismissing the efforts of others to live holy lives as a failure.  By doing this he elevates himself to the place of the Lord Jesus, who alone can judge.  The more we look down on others, the more we are hiding our own failures from ourselves.  “I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.”  

Problem D is in overvaluing his own good deeds.  The Pharisee in the parable performs the duties of his sect: the twice a week fasting and the paying of tithes on his whole income.  This goes beyond what is required in the Old Law and could have been profitable to him in his spiritual life, but he is doing this in accord with the practices of the Pharisees.  That is, it is his duty as a Pharisee to do these things.  He is not doing them for God but in order to belong to his sect.  Nevertheless, he accounts them as virtuous and that those who do not perform them are irreligious.  We have to be careful that we do not expect others to follow our practices of piety and to think that a person who does not say the rosary daily, for example, is a lousy Catholic.  

“O God, be merciful to me a sinner.”  The Lord points to the repentant tax collector as a model for us.  The Lord tells us that this man “stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed.”  He recognizes his sinfulness; he humbles himself before God, not making a show; he sought to make amends for his sin; and he prayed.  He prayed as Jesus would have us pray: short, concise, and right from the heart.  This is how Jesus taught his disciples to pray during his lifetime and how he teaches them to pray today: no flowery language, no empty promises, no attempts at winning a favor.  There is nothing pretty about real prayer.

By carefully examining our motives, scrutinizing our actions and praying simply and earnestly for the mercy we need, we may “go home” justified — made truly righteous by the grace of God.