Daily Mass Gospel Reflection- Praying To Ourselves

Word on Fire Ministry ^ | 03.18.23 | Bishop Robert Barron

[MurphsLaw]

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 tax collector’s prayer:
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 tax collector 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.”+++