A Homily given on 2 Tim 3.10.15 and Lk 18. 10-14 (The Pharisee and the Publican)
Glory to Jesus Christ.
At the end of today’s epistle, we hear St Paul proclaim: “In the Holy
Scriptures you can learn wisdom which leads you
to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus”. Do we take seriously
enough Holy Scriptures? Jesus gives us today a parable concerning the
attitude to have as we go up to the temple… here at Mount Tabor, each
Sunday. The 1st character, the Pharisee, goes up to the temple with
self-confidence. Confidence in one self is basic to maturing and
growing. If I did not repeatedly regain self-confidence during many a
difficult time, I would have remained in depression, lethargy and
fruitlessness. Here though, Jesus describes a danger: self-confidence
coupled with negligence of others. Positive self-confidence has no
disrespect of others. Positive self-confidence does not associate with
pride that I am not like the many who do not go to mass on Sundays. We
are to give thanks in all things. Our thanksgiving can boast as St
Paul does today giving himself in example to Timothy: “Imitate my
progress in persecutions and in sufferings, my faith, my endurance, my
love, my perseverance, my effort to live in devotion to Christ”. In
the gospel, Jesus puts humility above thanksgiving, we are to consider
others superior to ourselves. Today’s 2nd character, the
tax-collector, comes up to the temple to pray, conscious that, by
trade, he practices extortion of others, conscious that there is
fundamental evil in his practices, he sees himself inferior to others.
When we enter this temple, do we remember that we are sinners, that
there is evil in some of our practices… that we are unworthy, unworthy
of approaching God’s holiness, unworthy of lifting up our eyes to
heaven, that we are in need to beat our breast repeating “it’s my
fault, it’s my fault”, to repeat ceaselessly the Jesus Prayer, the
universal prayer for oriental Catholics which originated from today’s
gospel. The usual words of the Jesus Prayer are: “Lord, Jesus Christ,
Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner”? There is no other way to
purification and sanctification, except through the Jesus Prayer. Just
before today’s gospel, Jesus cries out: “Will I find faith on earth?
Will I find faith in you as you come up to this Eucharist (the word
Eucharist means thanksgiving)? Will you come up to this Eucharist with
profound humility? Jesus Himself declares today: to come up to the
temple with profound humility brings salvation. Are you ready to
substitute to all things, profound humility?
Today’s gospel ends with the saying: “whoever exalts himself will be
humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” Jesus
already said this a couple chapters earlier in conclusion of the
parable on taking the last place at banquets. The Virgin Mary
introduces this saying at the end of her canticle of thanksgiving. It
has always struck me that the Mother of God includes among her
motives of joy: “He puts down the mighty from their thrones” even as
she associates to it: “He exalts the lowly”. The evangelist Matthew
has Jesus pronounce this same saying in still two other different
contexts and the evangelist John has a version just before his Jesus’
Passion: “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life
in this world preserves it for eternal life.” (Jn 12.25) I count six
different gospel contexts with the same essential saying. A saying
found already in the Canticle of Hanna after she gave miraculous birth
to the prophet Samuel (1 Sam 2.7) and also in one of the concluding
psalms of the Psalter (Ps 147.6), also in the book of Job (Job 5.11)
and in the prophet Ezekiel (Ez 21.31). I know of no other saying of
Jesus so diversely represented. This is something unique in the Bible.
Does this not indicate that you as Christians have a special duty to
let this saying incarnate in yourselves? Are we not called to apply
with joy to our lives: “whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and
the one who humbles himself will be exalted”? “In the Holy Scriptures
you can learn wisdom which leads you to salvation through faith in
Christ Jesus” says St Paul.
Glory to Jesus Christ.
(Given on 1.29.2023)
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