Cycle C - Year I:

27 October 2019: Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

(Liturgical Color: Green)

Readings:

First Reading: Sirach 35:12-14, 16-18

Second Reading: 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18

Gospel: Please Read Luke 18:9-14

"How do we pray?"

Before we know 'how to pray?", let us ask the basic, "why do we pray at all?" That is an unusual question but it helps to understand the importance of prayer in our Christian life.

There are many answers to the question "why do we pray?" but a simple one is that we pray to talk to God. Because praying is communicating with Him.

St. Luke gives some helpful tips on how to pray coming from the very mouth of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Let us reflect on this Sunday's Gospel message.

Our Lord Jesus paints a vivid story of two men in prayer by way of a parable about a Pharisee and a tax collector in prayer. This parable presents contrasting and very different attitudes about prayer. The purpose of the story is to teach the listeners about the nature of prayer and our relationship with God.

The parable in the Gospel: There is a Pharisee who went to the temple area to pray. In the biblical times Pharisees take pride in observing their religious practices, often exalting themselves publicly at the expense of others they considered less holy. That is why, the Pharisee's prayer is a litany of prideful boasts of the good things he has done as he compared himself with those he despised.

In contrast, the other guy who went to the temple to pray is a tax collector, who is considered a public sinner because of their corrupt practices...(Bingo!... even during Jesus' time!) That is why this tax collector "stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beats his breast..." to ask for God's mercy. Now the parable concludes that God heard the prayer of the tax collector because he sought God in humility rather than in pride.

Both men who went to the temple area to pray may be considered good men, precisely because they were there to pray. So the Pharisee could rightly list his qualities. But his problem is when he regarded himself as better than others. For none of us can say before the Almighty that "I am superior to anyone."

Now what then is the lesson that our Lord Jesus wants us to learn from this parable?

We can reflect that the story presents to us both the good points about the importance of praying as well as a warning. Jesus is telling us that prayer should be free from boasting and pretensions. Instead before God we should learn to strike our breasts in humility. Because humility helps us to see ourselves as we really are before God, and that is weak and sinful creatures and thus in great need of God's mercy and compassion.

So then this parable is teaching us that God dwells with the humble of heart who recognize their own sinfulness and who acknowledge God's mercy and saving grace. And God cannot hear our prayer if we boast and despise others who are sinful like us.

Our Lord Jesus invites us to examine our hearts rather than look at others' fault. Let us humble and seek God's mercy in prayer, and show mercy and kindness as well to others, especially those who seem difficult to love and forgive, according to our human standard. Praying for God's mercy and forgiveness is our hope when everything else seems to fail.

This Sunday the Church celebrates "Prison Awareness Sunday". Let us include in our prayer and Mass intentions our brothers and sisters who are in prison because they, too, need to experience God's love, mercy, and compassion.

A blessed Sunday to us all. And thank you for a moment with God.

Ad Jesum per Mariam!