The Tax-Collector’s Prayer

In Luke’s gospel Jesus often sides with those who are so let down by life that they hardly dream of anything better– tax collectors, widows, sinners like the prodigal son. He was criticized frequently by others for associating with people like that, so he must have done it often enough.
The tax collector in the parable we read today, who’s praying in the back of the temple, is an example. Luke recalls earlier in his gospel that Jesus sat down at table with Matthew and some of his tax collector friends in Capernaum. Was he telling their story in this parable?
Staying at a distance, eyes down, the tax collector says only a few words:“O God, be merciful to me a sinner.”
The Pharisee’s prayer is so different, so full of himself; he seems to ask only for applause and approval. The tax collector asks only for mercy.
His prayer is heard so shouldn’t we make it our own? Tax-collectors,  widows and sinners stand closest to where all humanity stands. We all need God’s mercy. We come to God empty-handed.
“O God come to my assistance. O Lord make haste to help me.”

“O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

Always There

Once again, our lenten gospel for today reports what Jesus said in the temple area during the Feast of Tabernacles. His urgent words address especially those who oppose him. The time is short; the Light that guides the world has appeared, but Jesus “is going away” and those who reject him will die in their sins.

We’re not detached observers of a time long ago, as we listen to this Gospel, watching others challenged to believe. The challenge is not just to someone else; we’re challenged ourselves to answer the question: Who is Jesus Christ? He is “I AM,” a divine title his enemies find blasphemous, but believers find true.

In Hebrew it means “He who is always there.” Later in John’s Gospel, Thomas bows before Jesus and says “My Lord and my God,” for he recognizes that the One lifted up on the cross is indeed “IAM.”

An interesting title for God, isn’t it? “Always there.” Another way of saying the “Eternal One” perhaps, but “Always there” puts it in another way. “Always here” “Always present” “Always powerfully present.”

Our Gospel calls us to reverence the One lifted up on the Cross as the days of Holy Week approach. He is “I AM,” true God, sent by the Father, “who so loved the world that he sent his only Son.” And he will always be there.

 

Lord Jesus Christ,

Draw me to your cross

and show me your wounds, your bitter death,

your triumph over the tomb.

God with us, always there,

God who loves us so much,

keep me in mind of you,

save me from forgetfulness.      Amen.  .

The Interior Sorrows of Jesus

In the Mass for today, Luke’s Gospel brings us back to Nazareth, where Jesus lived most of his life among “his own.” But his own reject him at the beginning of his ministry in their synagogue. Their rejection surely hurt him; how could he forget it?

The crowds that welcome him to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday call him “the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.” Yet so few disciples from Nazareth seem to follow him; only a few women from there will stand by his cross as he dies. From what we know of Nazareth, Jesus did not find much acceptance there. “He came to his own and his own received him not.”

The Lenten Gospels prepare us for the great mystery of Jesus’ death and Resurrection by presenting him as one who took on himself our sorrows. They place before us the physical sorrows that come from the nails, the thorns, the scourging. But let’s not forget the interior sorrows Jesus experienced, the sorrow that his rejection at Nazareth brought to him, for example.  It also was part of the mystery of his cross.

We may not experience the physical sorrows of Jesus, but we will inevitably experience interior sorrows like his. Rejection by our own, perhaps. There are many ways  we share in the passion of Christ.

A Lenten Journey

Last year I wrote “A Lenten Journey with Jesus Christ and St. Paul of the Cross” for Christus Publishing. It was a little late for last Lent but Lent is almost upon us and it’s available now on Amazon and Crossplace.com.

The book attempts to link St. Paul of the Cross with the Lenten season, an obvious connection for someone who loved the mystery of the cross. His spirituality responds well to the gospels we read during Lent.  Saints feed on the Word of God and he not only fed on it but preached it too. This book takes a look at his life and  spirituality and offers a daily reflection for each day of Lent based on the gospel of the day.

I hope to follow St. Paul of the Cross as he follows Jesus Christ in this season of grace and to use some excerpts from the book on this blog.

Lent is a journey that’s blessed. The church and the whole communion of saints take part in it.  Let’s make it together.

The Gift of Mercy

Lk 6:36-38

Jesus said to his disciples:

“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

“Stop judging and you will not be judged.
Stop condemning and you will not be condemned.
Forgive and you will be forgiven.
Give and gifts will be given to you;
a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing,
will be poured into your lap.
For the measure with which you measure
will in return be measured out to you.”

In Matthew’s gospel Jesus goes up a mountain to teach his disciples. In Luke’s gospel, read on the Monday of the 2nd week of lent, the mountain is the place where Jesus prays with them. Then he descends and teaches them at length about loving others, especially one’s enemies.

We can hear his words as an extension of the beatitude “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.”

Notice what mercy means. It means not judging, not condemning, being forgiving. However, mercy does not stop there, it goes on to give gifts to the other. That’s the way God shows mercy. Like the father of the prodigal son, whom Luke describes later on in his gospel, God not only forgives but offers sinners a feast of unearned graces– “bring a robe–the best one–and put it on him, put a ring on his finger and scandals on his feet.”

God doesn’t ration mercy or hedge it around with caution. He doesn’t keep remembering anyone’s wrong.

St Bernard says that the merciful “are those who see the truth in their neighbor and reach out in compassion and identify in love with them, responding to the joys and sorrows of others as if they were their own.” Seeing the truth in our neighbor means, of course, seeing  human frailty, misguided dreams, selfishness and sinfulness in others and recognizing that truth in  ourselves. Mercy begins by knowing yourself.