Daily Mass Gospel Reflection- Self Regarding, Self Assured

Word on Fire Ministry ^ | 03.26.22 | Aux. Bishop R. Barron

[MurphsLaw]

Third Week of Lent

Luke 18:9-14

Friends, today’s Gospel compares the self-centered prayer of the Pharisee
with the God-centered prayer of the tax collector.

The Pharisee spoke his prayer to himself.
This is, Jesus suggests, a fraudulent, wholly inadequate prayer,
precisely because it simply confirms the man in his self-regard.
And the god to which he prays is, necessarily,
a false god, an idol, since it allows itself to be positioned by
the ego-driven needs of the Pharisee.

But then Jesus invites us to meditate upon the publican’s prayer. He speaks with a simple eloquence:
"[He] beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’"
Though it is articulate speech, it is not language that confirms the independence and power of the speaker—just the contrary.
It is more of a cry or a groan, an acknowledgement that he needs
to receive something,
this mysterious mercy for which he begs.

In the first prayer,
"god" is the principal member of the audience
arrayed before the ego of the Pharisee.
But in this second prayer,
God is the principal actor,
and the publican is the audience awaiting a performance the contours of which he cannot fully foresee.

[MurphsLaw]

+++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.”+++