The gospel this week is a continuation of lessons on prayer. Last week we learned about the need to persevere in prayer. The lesson this week is the importance of humility in our prayer.

I’m going to start with a little background for today’s gospel. First, in Jesus’s day, Pharisees were very highly respected. We look at them as a bunch of hypocrites; but it wasn’t like that in Jesus’s day. The people looked at the Pharisees as holy, good people. The tax collectors of course were despised and hated. They were definitely the “bad” guys. Both the Pharisee and the tax collector go up to the Temple to pray and the commentators suggest they probably went at the time of public prayer at the morning or evening sacrifices. These prayer times and sacrifices are for people to get right with God. It was the way for the Jewish people to be reconciled with God, kind of like a penance service for us. Jesus describes the incredible arrogance of the Pharisee and the humility of the tax collect and then makes the shocking statement that the tax collector left the Temple justified, in other words, right with God, but the Pharisee did not. And remember, the parable was addressed to “those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else.” So, He’s telling them that they may be doing good things, the Pharisee was doing good things, but if they have the attitude of this Pharisee, they are not right with God.

But let’s focus on the tax collector and his prayer. First of all, he stands far away. He knows that he is far from God, that God is holy, and he is not so he stands far off and does not even raise his eyes. Second, while the Pharisee thinks about and judges others, including the tax collector who is in the congregation with him, the tax collector doesn’t worry about others. He knows he is a sinner in need of mercy, so he’s simply not interested in judging anyone else. Finally, he beat his breast and prayed, O God, be merciful to me, a sinner. He prayed. He asked and he trusted and hoped that God would hear his prayer. He knows that on his own he has no hope of being right with God, but he hopes in God’s mercy.

And God heard his prayer. He turns to God in humility. St. Teresa of Avila calls humility an ointment for our soul. It heals, it soothes the pain in our soul. When we fall into the same sins and imperfections even after many confessions and efforts to rid ourselves of some fault, we can turn to humility. When we feel powerless and unable to overcome a temptation when it comes, there is always one option for us – we can humble ourselves with sincerity and confidence and humility will heal our wounds because it will attract divine mercy to them. St. Teresa said it this way, “if we indeed have humility, even though there may be a time of delay, the surgeon who is our Lord, will come to heal us.” He wants us to turn to Him with confidence in His mercy.

For me, the clearest proof of this is Paul’s statement at the end of Romans 11. In Romans 11 he speaks of the disobedience of the gentiles in former times, and the disobedience of the Jews in his current time, and in verse 32 he says, “For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.” Repeat. And then it’s like a cry of praise “O the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! … To him be glory forever. Amen”.

The big problem is not that we fall. The big problem for many of us is that we think we shouldn’t, that we think we’re better than that, or ought to be. Listen to St. Therese the little flower,

O Lord, my misery does not surprise me. Nor does my utter helplessness distress me. I even glory in it, and expect every day to reveal some fresh imperfection. 

What an illusion! We wish never to fall? What difference does it make, O Lord, if I fall at every instant? It will make me realize my weakness and I shall derive great profit from it.

Yes, O my God, I am happy to feel little and weak in Your presence, and my heart remains in peace … I am glad to feel so imperfect and to need Your mercy so much! When we calmly accept the humiliation of being imperfect, Your grace, O Lord, returns at once.

I struggled with this for a while. It almost sounds like she’s happy to sin. Wouldn’t it be better not to sin? On the one hand, yes, we certainly want to avoid sin, but our striving is because we love Him and want to be His good friend. It’s like our spouse, or a good friend, we want to do good for them, not because we want people to look at us and say, hey what a great guy, but, we do it because we love them. So, we do want to be good, but we’re going to fall. Even the great saints say as long as we’re on this earth, we’re going to have our imperfections. If we never fell, we wouldn’t need to reach out to Him for mercy. St. Therese loved her falls because they were occasions for her to reach out to Him and trust Him. She said, “what offends God and wounds His heart most is want of confidence.” It’s not our falls, it’s want of confidence, lack of trust in His mercy. Think of our kids. Our kid disobeys us, or does something wrong, and initially we get angry, but, if he comes to us truly sorry for what he did, our anger falls away. How can we remain angry when we see our child truly sorry for what they did? That’s what God is looking for.

One of the other things St. Teresa encourages us to do is to know ourselves, know our failings and our weakness because that will draw us to God and as we experience His mercy, we will fall more in love with Him. So, a few years ago I asked God to show me, and He answered that prayer right away, and He’s continued to answer it. The falls that bother me the most have been the ones involving my family, especially my wife and kids. It hasn’t been fun, but it’s been so good. I’ve started to notice that there are times, it’s not always, I still have a long way to go, but there have been times when I have a strong desire to make up for the past and really love my wife and my kids. I’ll look for ways to love them. It’s all God’s grace, and as I say, I still feel like I have a long way to go; but that alone gives me real hope.

So, brothers and sisters, as we come up for communion, let us approach Jesus like the tax collector, realizing our need and trusting and thanking Him for His incredible mercy.