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On this Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, we read Jesus’ powerful story of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18: 9-14):
“He then addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else. “Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity – greedy, dishonest, adulterous – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’ But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’ I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Interestingly, of all the prayers Jesus probably heard in his day, this is the one that he highly praised: “O God, be merciful to me a sinner,” a short prayer that all of us should know by heart and use each day.
