HOMILY FOR THIRTIETH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME (C)

Fr Billy Swan

Dear friends. The Gospel this Sunday presents us with the familiar story of the Pharisee and the tax-collector. There are a number of themes contained in this wonderful parable and each one deserves a homily on its own. Here are three thoughts.

First, no one who is proud can pray properly. Although the first words of the Pharisee were ‘O God, I thank you…’ the statement is not really a prayer to God at all but an opportunity to admire himself. What appears as a prayer is a turning in on himself as he sees not all there is to see but what he wants to see. Such is always the danger with methods of mindfulness where we don’t meet God but just ourselves.

But when Christians turn into ourselves in prayer, we meet the Spirit of the living God who dwells in us and encounters us. There we are not alone and come to realize that we are not God and are not perfect. The Pharisee was completely out of touch with his own imperfection. The tax-collector was completely aware of it. To deny imperfection is to disown oneself for to be human is to be imperfect. This is the first stage of growth and becoming more humble and real. St Augustine’s classic Confessions is a master-piece of self-awareness where he honestly describes his own shadow side but also discovers God’s love, mercy and finds the grace to face up to himself, to mature and grow. Like St Therese of Lisieux once said: ‘I may be imperfect but I have courage’.

Second, no one who despises his fellow human being can pray. In prayer we do not lift ourselves above everyone else but ground ourselves beside everyone else - the great army of our fellow brothers and sisters who share the human condition with us. Modern mindfulness is useless if it does not ground us in our brokenness, making us more compassionate and making us see that I am no better or worse than anyone else. In the words of C.S. Lewis, if we keep looking down on others we will never believe, because we can’t see what is above us. And so when we touch our own wounds and those of others in prayer, we begin to resemble a family of faith, united by the bonds of charity and understanding.

Finally, true prayer comes from seeing our lives in the light of God and not by comparing ourselves with someone else. Again, look at the Pharisee. He thought he was a great guy by comparing himself with the tax-collector. He said to himself: ‘I’m not like him’. The tax-collector didn’t play that game. He compared himself to God: ‘O God be merciful to me a sinner’. Yet the tax-collector went home at rights with God because he saw himself as he really was. The Pharisee deluded himself by comparing himself to others. We can do that too, saying things like ‘I haven’t killed anyone or done the bad things that others do. I’m OK’. That is why the sacrament of confession is so important. There we not only meet ourselves but expose our lives to the light of Jesus Christ and the holiness of God. And when we do, all that is left to say is ‘O God be merciful to me a sinner’ and to await the sublime gift of his forgiveness and mercy.

Friends, to pray is to become humble and real. It makes us grow in the love of one another and to see ourselves in the light of God. It leads us to see in us what God sees in us and loves in us. This is why prayer is so important.

In the closing words of St Catherine of Siena: ‘Reflect on this my dearest children. We can see neither our own dignity nor the defects which spoil the beauty of our soul, unless we look at ourselves in the peaceful sea of God’s being in which we are imaged…Remain in the holy, gentle love of God’ (‘Look at Yourself in the Water’).