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?.....

Luke 18;9-14 Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time. October 27th, 2013

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; remember the story of the widow and the unjust judge. Today, Jesus teaches us an essential disposition of prayer- that of humility... to accept the truth, the real truth about ourselves in light of God and of His truth.

In the Gospel of St. Luke, we hear Jesus speaking to a group of believers, who convinced of their own goodness and their own self-righteousness, despise everyone else, the rest of humanity. The Pharisees thought they were righteous, and everyone else, especially Jesus and his disciples, were not. How would we translate this to our own day?

Well, it seems there was a priest who had given a moving homily on the Gospel we just heard, about this proud Pharisee and the humble publican or public sinner, tax collector. Everybody it seems was impressed with the priest’s homily, especially one man, who had developed a decided dislike for the Pharisee or any else who would brag: “God, I thank thee that I am not like other men.” Right after Mass, this man shook hands with the priest 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 self-righteous pride; that is, the sin of considering himself better than someone else or even everyone 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. It is the same sin of the Pharisee, which believes it’s everyone else who needs to change--the rest of humanity but not me. The self-righteous is one who never deals with his own sin. This reveals something else about self-righteousness.

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. He expects perfection in everyone else, but not in himself. 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. He even begins to project his own sins onto other people in order to keep himself from looking at his own imperfect life. Whenever a person doesn't deal with own his sins, his life gets caught up in trying to control others, to change others. And when they don’t change according to his standards this leads him to anger, resentment and even revenge against the other. (Be careful of those who talk angrily about the faults of others because so often the supposed faults of others belong in fact to the one who is pointing them out! It’s kind of like a thief who accuses someone else of thievery in order to pull the attention off himself)

My mom's mom, my grandma 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 Divine Light how sinful they were and so the more they sought his forgiveness and so open themselves up to His Divine Mercy. The opposite is true, if we fail to realize that we are sinners the more we close ourselves off to the Mercy of God.

We have to be careful because if we are honest (and humble) we have to admit that 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 in light of our supposed perfection, “I am not like them,” we will then too want to react strongly against anyone, anyone, who would show us, through their words or through their holiness of life, the truth about our self; the truth about own real sins, faults and failures. And we can even go further and be like a thief and accuse a good man in order to take the attention off of our self.

Jesus showed the Pharisees the truth about their sins. He did so by His words and by his actions; the light of His divine continence removed the clouds of self-imposed blindness so they could see their sinfulness. But they didn't want to see it. And so instead, they projected their sin on Jesus. They falsely accused him, and in the end killed him, even though they knew Him to be just man. The very same thing happens every day, even in our Church, our parishes and in our families. Good people who are trying to live lives of holiness. By their actions they bring the light of Christ that convicts the guilty consciences of others, others who instead of repenting, attack the goodness in the one whose life convicts them, falsely accusing him or her of all sorts of misdeeds. In the end the falsely accused may not be killed physically, but they are killed nonetheless; their good name is killed-this happens especially to good and holy priests, but not only to priests. The true prophet, that is he or she who preaches the truth by word and most importantly by holiness of life, is always attacked and falsely accused by those who refused to admit the truth about their sinfulness and so refuse to repent and convert their lives to Christ. In the end the prophet can even be physically killed. And not just by the pagans, but even by those who claim to be followers of Christ and are within the Church --these are the wolves in sheep’s clothing that our Blessed Lord warns about and they can be bishops, priests or members of the laity.

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 beat ourselves up and despair, but instead so we will see our desperate need for His infinite mercy; and in light of this desperate need, and with great hope, open ourselves to His Divine Mercy by our repentance and conversion of heart.

God knows all our sins, from every omission to every thought and deed; He knows the truth about us. We may be able to fool others but not Him. Yet, nevertheless, he desires to forgives us and make us better. The publican knew this about God and so said- “have mercy on me a sinner.” This sinner believed that God was merciful and would pardon his sins, if he but beg for God's mercy. The publican didn't even 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 have this humble-truthful attitude about ourselves, saying like the publican, "have mercy on me a sinner!" Jesus knows our sins and He knows as well our fear of facing them. We for our part need to ask the Holy Spirit to show us how God's see us, not how we see ourselves- to reveal to us the true state of our soul as it stands before God’s Infinite holiness and perfection. The Holy Spirit will then reveal to us this truth ever so gently. He will peal back the scab so that we can see the infection that lies beneath the surface of our soul. As we become more and more aware of the infection of our sins, the Holy Spirit will tell us how much He loves us and how much He desires to heal the damage our sin has cause to our hearts. He will also point out how our sins have hurt all of the members of the mystical body of Christ, the Church; but now, that through us, He 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, that’s for other people. This can also happen to us; by thinking that with all of our many good deeds we no longer need confession, after all we haven’t “killed” anyone; at least we think…maybe not physically but have we killed their good reputation, through gossip, detraction and calumny?

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 years into decades. 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. They become like the person who said, “Father I stole a piece of paper.” What was on the piece of paper, asked the priest. “Well just some 1’s and 0’s aaannd a picture of Benjamin Franklin.” And so as a result of their self-righteousness they only see the real or imagined sins of others and not their own...and they too can then succumb to the lie, "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 fall on his knees in order to confess his sins fully and truthfully.

To go along with confession, the Sacrament of God's mercy, forgiveness and healing, is the help that comes from 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. Just think, 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, to see ourselves as we are, so we can allow Him to strengthen and heal our hearts and so our communion of love with God and with one another.

The more in faith we adore God in the Holy 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 great 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, to sacrifice for them and to pray for the healing of the damage our sin as cause the unity of the whole body of Christ, the Church, including St. Mary’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 Holy Communion not only for ourselves but also for our entire parish family, for the strengthening of the communion of love between all of its members in the Mystical Body of Christ. Let us say from the depths of our souls, “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—the humble handmaid of the Lord. 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!