In today’s gospel, Jesus tells the parable of the Pharisee
and the tax collector. In his prayer, the Pharisee reminds the Lord of all he
has done, fasting, praying and tithing. The tax collector goes humbly, on his
knees, and asks for mercy for his sins. Jesus reminds us that it is the tax
collector who is justified. “The one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
For many of us reading this, we are good people trying to
live out our faiths in a very secular world. We go to Mass each week, we may
attend a Bible study. We spend time in prayer, we fast. It can feel like we are
doing so much compared to others. We
measure ourselves against a world that, these days, doesn’t set a very high
bar. But even if we measured ourselves against the piety of the holiest man, it
is our humility the Lord most desires. If we went to Mass every day, made a monthly
confession and tithed more than our 10% and came to the Lord showing him all
our good deeds, He would be more pleased with the person who had done none of this but said to Him,
“Bless me for I have sinned.”
There is a great comfort in knowing that it is the condition
of our hearts that will hurt or please the Lord. We absolutely should spend as
much time as possible in prayer, fasting, almsgiving. These things make us more
like Jesus and bring us closer to Him. We just have to do so with humility. We
can’t earn our way into Heaven. Jesus took every one of those nails out of the
same love for saint and sinner. We say
at Mass, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.” We humble
ourselves before we receive the greatest gift ever given, the actual body of
Christ. That shows how important humility is in the Christian walk.
We will all walk through different seasons of life. There
will be times when we can make it to daily Mass and monthly confession, times
when we can tithe 10% before taxes. Hopefully, we will get on our knees each
night of those plentiful times and tell the Lord that we are thankful for His
provision and ask for forgiveness for the ways we didn’t honor Him. There will
also be times when we can’t get to daily Mass, when our tithe will be in time
rather than money. Hopefully we will get on our knees during those times and
tell the Lord we are thankful for His provision and ask forgiveness for ways we
didn’t honor Him.
Our God loves us in plenty or in want. He loves us not for
what we do or give, but who we are. God doesn’t love us because we’re good. He loves us because HE is good.
-Keri Ninness
