The theme of last Sunday’s readings is prayer. Prayer for each of us is an essential and indispensable component of our common vocation to holiness. Without prayer we cannot hope to follow Christ, we need prayer as much as our body needs food to eat and air to breathe.
The first reading from the book of Ecclesiasticus says:
…The humble man’s prayer pierces the clouds ..
Prayer should be our first priority every day. St John Paul II said:
For me, prayer is my first priority, every day.
Prayer could be described as the breath of the soul. It is necessary to be diligent and setting aside quality time for prayer, not just try and squeeze it in. This is because the devil tries to keep Christians from praying with artificial excuses. The purpose of today’s Gospel is to teach us the difference between true piety and false piety. The Catholic Catechism (2558) tells us what prayer is by taking a quote from St Therese of Lisieux:
For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward Heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.
The prayer of the humble and pious always reaches God and attains its end.
Jesus told the parable to the Scribes and Pharisees who were proud. They believed themselves to be righteous due to their observance of the externals and they despised others. In the parable, the Pharisee did not come to the Temple to pray to God, instead he just praised himself, there was no love for God in his words, nor any sign of humility. He should have been looking toward Heaven and not himself.
The tax collector on the other hand, humbled himself and full of trust begged for God’s mercy. Jesus said, he was forgiven and went home at rights with God, the Pharisee’s prayers were rejected by God due to his pride. He did not go home at rights with God. This is because God opposes the proud and favours the humble. Jesus stated: For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the man who humbles himself will be exalted. Thus, all our prayers must be full of humility, attentive and trusting. This is because in prayer, we who are nothing come before the All, who holds each of us in existence at every moment. Humility must be the foundation of all our dealings with God. The journey or pilgrimage that we all called to undertake is the journey from pride to humility. That is the journey that the Pharisee in the Gospel needed to make. Often people can be proud and lack compassion for others because they haven’t experienced problems themselves or they didn’t have a heavy cross to carry, so they can lack empathy and can be judgemental and insensitive to the sufferings of others. Only God knows why people are the way they are and the wounds they may carry, so we need to leave judgement to God. Usually, a fall or humiliation in life is what it takes for someone to lose their pride and to realize that they are only human and that we are all on the same playing field, because God loves each one of us equally. God also knows each person’s potential to change and become holy.
This reminds me of the story of an Arch-Abortionist. In the 1960’s the famous atheist doctor, Bernard Nathanson, together with a handful of collaborators set to work to legalize abortion. They fabricated statistical studies, leveraged mass media, lobbied Washington and mounted a legal strategy that manipulated abused women. They used every means available, moral and immoral to create the climate for the infamous Rose v. Wade decision which opened the door for more than forty million abortions in the USA since 1973. Doctor Nathanson performed around 75,000 of these himself. In his 1996 book: The Hand of God, he tells how his conversion came about. The invention of ultrasound enabled him to see what really happens inside the womb during an abortion. After that he stopped performing abortions and became a pro-life activist. But he still could not sleep at night. He would wake up in a cold sweat, haunted by all the lives he had ended, directly and indirectly. He began to think about following in the footsteps of his grandfather and sister who had committed suicide. He just couldn’t live with himself, he needed to wash away his sins, as he says in his book and he could find no way to do it. At that point, he witnessed a pro-life demonstration outside an abortion clinic in New York City. It was a moment of grace. He says he saw their faith and peace of the people praying, and he began to think there may be some hope for him. A Priest reached out to him soon afterwards, and in 1996 Dr Bernard Nathanson, former abortionist and abortion rights activist, was Baptised, his sins were forgiven. He had received the first plank of salvation. Jesus loves going after big sinners.
It is easy for us to be blinded by spiritual sins like arrogance and vanity. Every person in the world is loved by God. Jesus died to offer salvation to every single person. He suffered and died for the godless and His love and mercy have no limits. Let’s be a people of humble and steadfast prayer and be assiduous in praying the Holy Rosary. Prayer forms the heart. Jesus and Mary are the two great examples of humility and service. They are models of giving and not counting the cost. Our love for God and neighbour should also be expressed in a readiness to serve, giving or our time and talents. Remember also that Confession is the second plank of salvation in which we are washed clean. We can’t really love selflessly, if our heart is not clean. Love the sacrament of Confession, pray constantly. Make Holy Mass and Adoration the centre of your life, then your prayer will also pierce the clouds! Praise be Jesus and His Mercy now and forever!