As the Jubilee Year of Mercy enters its final month, we gather to celebrate our loving and merciful God by hearing the prayer of the tax collector in the Gospel: “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.” As hard to believe as it may be that in all this vast universe God hears our prayers, the scriptures tell us today that “the prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds.” So today let us make humble and honest prayers together to our merciful and loving God.

     Let us hear and pray about these scriptures today, let us listen for clues about the kind of prayer our loving God wishes to hear from us.  That is, do we focus more on ourselves and what “I” need … or do we surrender self-interest for a time, and focus on the other?  In our Gospel, Jesus describes two men who went to the temple to pray, but only one comes away justified. The book of Sirach tells us that the one who serves God willingly is heard.  Notice how many times the Pharisee uses the word I or me.  The focus seems more to his own righteousness that to a position of penitence. It what way do you need God’s mercy?

     One way of deepening your appreciation of the Scriptures is to imagine inserting yourself into the scene.  This is a method of “contemplation” used by St Ignatius in the Spiritual Exercises.  Look closely at the passage:  as Jesus travels to Jerusalem’s temple to pray, he describes a Pharisee and a tax collector also traveling “up to the temple area to pray”. “O God, I thank you,” begins the Pharisee, sounding totally grateful to God, but, warns Jesus, not actually praying to God at all. “The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself . . . ‘I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’”  That tax collector “would not even raise his eyes to heaven,” neither praised himself nor condemned others, but “beat his breast and” really “prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner’”.  Which person is closer to you?  Are you more like one than the other?  Or are you merely in the crowd watching?  

     Jesus “addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else”. As the Jubilee Year of Mercy’s final month begins, we, like Jesus’ Pharisee and tax collector, have come to our local temple (parish church) to pray. So which of Jesus’ two characters are you?  “The Lord will rescue me,” assures former Pharisee Paul, “and will bring me safe to his heavenly kingdom”.  Welcoming other sinners with loving respect as our true and beloved brothers and sisters, let the tax collector’s prayer be ours, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.”  How can I become a joyful “welcomer” this last month of the Jubilee Year of Mercy to friends who have not yet found their joy in confidently trusting God’s loving mercy?

adapted from  J.S.Paluch, & Co.