For the past couple of weeks, the Church has given us readings about prayer, and today is no exception. Last week, we were encouraged to persevere in our prayer; recall the story of the widow and the unjust judge. Today, Jesus teaches an essential disposition of prayer- that of humility... to accept the truth about ourselves in light of God's truth.
In the Gospel of St. Luke we hear Jesus speaking to a group of folks, who convinced of their own self-righteousness, despise everyone else. The Pharisees thought they were righteous, and everyone else, especially Jesus and his disciples, were not. How would we translate that to our own day?
There was a priest who had given a moving homily on the Gospel we just heard, about the proud Pharisee and the humble publican. Everybody it seems was impressed, especially one man, who had developed a decided dislike for the Pharisee or anybody who would brag: “God, I thank thee that I am not like other men.” Right after Mass, this man shook hands with his pastor and told him: “Good sermon, Father.” Then he added: “Thank God, I’m not like that Pharisee.”
Unfortunately of course, this man was doing the very same thing the Pharisee was doing in the Gospel. It was clear in his comments to the priest, that this man was blind to the fact that he was committing the exact same sin of the Pharisee; the sin of pride; the sin of considering himself better than someone else; the sin of refusing to change his life according to the truth, that is the refusal to see his own sinfulness in light of the Gospel and the teachings of the Church in order to repent and convert his own life. This reveals something else about the self-righteous.
A person who hasn't dealt with his own sins, also becomes fixated on the real or imagined sins of others and constantly points them out...thank God I am not like the rest of humanity....He expects perfection in everyone else, but not for himself. He even begins to project his own sins onto other people to keep himself from looking at his own imperfect life. And then, when a person in his life fails to live up to the impossible standard of perfection he sets for them, he resents them for it. He ends up of with a long list of grudges. When a person doesn't deal with his sins, his life gets caught up in trying to control others and this leads to anger, resentment and even revenge. (Be careful of those who talk angrily about the faults of others!)
My mom's mom had a great saying, "Don't worry about the dirt on your neighbor's porch, you have enough to sweep off on your own." The truth is clear, we are all sinners. The great saints of the Church, such as St. Francis of Assisi, knew they were sinners. In fact, the closer they drew to Christ, the more they realized in His light how sinful they were. The opposite is true, if we fail to realize that we are sinners.
We have to be careful because there is a little Pharisee that lives in each one of us trying to justify our faults and failings; and at the same time, always wanting to point out the real or supposed faults and failures of others. And then wanting to react strongly against anyone, anyone, who would show us, through their words or through their holiness of life, the truth about our own real sins, faults and failures. Jesus showed the Pharisees the truth about their sins; they didn't want to see them and so they projected their sin on Jesus, falsely accused him, and in the end killed him. The same happens every day, even in our parishes and families, in the end the falsely accused may not be killed, but their good name is.
Jesus for his part, does not want to condemn anyone for sin. He wants to give us, through His Spirit, the confidence to face the hard facts- that we are indeed miserable sinners. But He doesn't do this so we will see our desperate need for His infinite mercy, and open ourselves to it by our repentance and conversion of heart.
God knows all our sins, from every omission to every thought and deed. Yet, he desires to forgives us and make us better. The publican knew this- “have mercy on me a sinner.” He believed God was merciful and would pardon his sins, if he beg for God's mercy. He didn't have time to look at the sins of the Pharisees; in fact, and this is the other part of all of this, I am sure, the publican, in the recognition of his sinfulness and in light of God's mercy, realized his great need to beg for God's mercy, not only for himself, but for all of his fellow sinners..."have mercy on us and on the whole world!"
When we pray we can ask God to help us to have this humble-truthful attitude, saying like the publican, "have mercy on me a sinner!" Jesus knows our sins and our fear of facing them. We need to ask the Holy Spirit to show us how God's see us, not how we see ourselves. As we become aware of our sins, the Holy Spirit also tells us how much He desires to heal the damage sin has cause our hearts. He also points out how own sins have hurt all of the members of the mystical body of Christ, the Church. And so, the Holy Spirit through us, wishes to heal that damage as well, in order to reconcile us to God and to one another, especially in our families and parish family!
We need to be humble, but as we all know, being humble is so hard for us. Jesus offers us so much help, but we need to us it. First He gives us the help of the sacrament of Reconciliation. Confession is one the most humble acts we as humans can do, that is why it can be hard for us.
To go before the priest acting in the person of Christ, or I should say, Christ acting in the person of the priest, is very humbling, that’s one of the reasons why we need to do it. The Pharisee would have never been humble enough to go to confession. He would have thought that with all his good and righteous deeds, like regular community outreach, church attendance, tithing and fasting he didn’t need to confess his sins to Jesus, much less to Jesus’ representative, the priest. This can also happen to us; by thinking that with all of our many good deeds we no longer need confession.
Most people don’t decide one day they are never going to confession anymore. They just put it on the backburner, thinking they are righteous enough and before you know it, months turn into years. And even for those who still go to confession a sense of pharisaical self-righteousness can easily creep into their confessions and hold them back from being totally truthful to the priest. It’s like the person who said, “Father I stole a piece of paper.” What was on the piece of paper, asks the priest. “Well just some 5’s and 0’s and a picture of president Ulysses S. Grant.” And as a result of their self-righteousness they only see the real or imagined sins of others and not their own...even the leads to, "why do I have to go to confession?" In the end, I guarantee you that the tax collector would have been the first in line to go to confession, and confess his sins fully and truthfully.
To go along with confession, the Sacrament of God's mercy, forgiveness and healing, is the Holy Eucharist. One always leads a person to the other. The reality of the Holy Eucharist is the greatest of all helps to teach us humility. Jesus humbled himself to become a man and more deeply humbles himself when he becomes our food in His great gift of the Holy Eucharist. Jesus, the Word incarnate, humbles himself to be present fully in the Eucharist- his body, blood, soul and divinity. This is the greatest act of humility the world has seen or will ever see!
If Jesus, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords can humble himself to become our food, we should have the same confidence and trust to open our hearts in humility to Him. We do this both by kneeling before Him in the person of the priest in the Sacrament of confession and by kneeling in adoration before his true substantial presence in the Holy Eucharist. His grace received through confession and through the reception and adoration of the Eucharist is our help to truly receive the gift of humility, and to strengthen and heal our communion of love with God and one another.
The more we adore Him in the Eucharist the more His light reveals to us our true self, the more then we see that we are sinners in need of his forgiveness and mercy. Yet at the same time, the more we see His love for us; and as a result, the more we fall madly in love with His divine presence. The more as well, we see our connection with our brothers and sisters and Christ in our Church family throughout the world, and the Church family in our midst, the parish family, and our great need and responsibility to love them, sacrifice for them and pray for the healing of the damage our sin as cause the unity of the whole body of Christ, the Church, including St. Patrick's parish family.
Let us ask Jesus as we receive Him worthily today, to give us His gift of humility and prayer. Let us receive Him in Communion not only for ourselves but for our entire parish family, for the strengthening of the communion of love between all of its members in the Mystical Body of Christ. Domine non sum dignus intres sub tectum meum: sed tantum dic verbo, et sanabitur anima mea. That is, “O Lord I am not worthy to receive you under my roof, but only say the Word and my soul shall be healed.”
And finally, let us turn to the Blessed Mother. We can't even pray the Hail Mary truthfully, if we don't recognize or sinfulness. For how can we say, "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners", if we don't see the truth that we are sinners in need of her prayer?.....Holy Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, Mother of our Parish family, pray for us sinners who have recourse to thee. Amen. God Bless you all!
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