The Pharisee in today’s gospel parable seems glaringly self-centered and pretentious in giving thanks to God that he is not like other sinners: greedy, dishonest or adulterous. He feels especially superior to the tax collector despised by the Jewish community for collaborating with the Romans. In sharp contrast we find this tax collector standing off at a distance from the temple. He knows he is a sinner, confesses this to God and asks for His mercy. Jesus tells his disciples the tax collector went home justified (transformed by God’s love and forgiveness) while the Pharisee did not. Before we judge the Pharisee too harshly, however, keep in mind he has lived faithful to God’s commandments as he understood them per the cultural norms and religious practices at that time. What Jesus is trying to get His disciples (and us) to understand is that the Pharisee was missing a critical point in his prayer. By focusing on his own righteous acts, he was not making himself present to God. He wasn’t inviting God to be present to him either. He was missing the opportunity to encounter God in a relationship and receive his mercy and grace. The Pharisee left the Temple basically the same way he had entered, focused on himself instead of God. The tax collector, on the other hand, approached God with humility and honesty longing to draw closer to God despite his unworthiness. Jesus ends the parable by summarizing the essential difference between the two men, “for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” Do we truly open our hearts to God and ask Him to come in when we pray? Or do we “go through the motions” of prayer, concerned only with our own “wants,” and miss the opportunity to grow in our relationship with God? Reflection by parishioner, Dale Gerber