Readings: Sirach
35:12-14, 16-18; 2 Timothy 4:6-8,16-18; Lk 18:9-14
The Prayerful
Posture of the Penitent Man
The posture we adopt during prayer can express
the attitudes of our hearts. I remember my pastor when I was growing up. Many nights between 10 and 11 pm, I saw him
kneel, at the back of the church, on the last pew praying silently, with his
eyes fixed intently on the crucifix behind the Altar. I used to wonder what
he prayed for and why. I thought as a priest, he did not need to pray so much.
Now I know better!
Biblical characters adopted different
postures when they prayed. Abraham prostrated himself before God, (Gen. 17:3,
17). Moses prayed on the hill with uplifted hands for the defeat of the Amalek.
(Ex. 18:8-13). Solomon knelt down with hands outstretched toward heaven,
(1Kings 8:54). The leper prostrated and pleaded ‘Lord, if you wish, you can
make me clean.’ (Lk. 5:12). Jesus prayed looking up to heaven, (Mk. 6:41; Jn.
11:41; 17:1). Ps. 95:6 urged us, “Enter, let us bow down in worship; let us
kneel before the Lord who made us.” What is your prayer posture?
“Pride goes before the fall”, is a saying
we are familiar with. It means, if you are too conceited or self-important,
something will happen to make you look foolish. This saying captures the
attitude of the Pharisee, one of the two men who went to pray in the temple in
today’s Gospel. Let us look at the Pharisees and their kind of prayer:
Pharisees were members of a party that believed in the resurrection and in
following legal traditions that were ascribed not to the Bible but to “the
traditions of the fathers.” They were “lay people who dedicated themselves to
trying to keep God’s law as perfectly and as scrupulously as they could. They
performed spiritual practices over and above what the law demanded and looked
down upon anyone who failed to live up to their standards.” (Homilies by Fr. Joe Robinson, Cycle C).
The prayer in the Gospel is typical of a
pharisaic prayer. “O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity –
greedy, dishonest, adulterous – even like this tax collector” (Lk. 18:11).
According to William Barclay, “There is a
recorded prayer of a certain Rabbi which runs like this, “I thank, Thee, O Lord
my God, that thou hast put my part with those who sit in the Academy, and not
with those who sit at the street corners. For I rise early, and they rise
early; I rise early to the words of the law, and they to vain things. I labor,
and they labor; I labor and receive a reward, and they labor and receive no
reward. I run, and they run; I run to the life of the world to come, and they
to the pit of destruction.” Rabbi Simeon ben Jocai once said, “If there are
only two righteous men in the world, I and my son are these two; if there is
only one, I am he!”
So being puritanical and scrupulous, the
Pharisee may have, no doubt, done all that he said he did. He may not have
cheated anyone, was not adulterous. He fasted, prayed many times a day, paid
tithes on all he had and more; but he said the prayers of himself and to
himself, not God. He was not humble but conceited. He was like a peacock, who flashed
his beautiful colored tail feathers for everyone to see how handsome he was. He
was ostentatious, boastful, proud and narcissistic. He called attention to
himself! His, was not prayer, but a list of accomplishments, expecting God to
praise him. His, is the sin of lucifer - “bringing light”, referred to as ‘the
morning star’ (Is. 14:12), who turned that light on himself and refused to
worship the Most High God. He gave his advertisement to God for his glorious achievements
and expected God to congratulate and reward him. He clearly demonstrated that
he had no need of God. In fact, he felt that God needed him more than he needed
God, to show the world how true holiness looks like. True prayer should be directed to God and God alone. God does not
need a record of our good works. He knows them all. Rather, He needs us to have a contrite heart; a
heart that is forgiving, caring, loving, compassionate and merciful. Not
condescending, boastful, conceited and spiteful heart. Such a heart is
loathsome to God. That is why the Pharisee was not justified before God.
“The proud place themselves at a distance
from others and seen through that distance, others perhaps appear little to
them even contemptible, as the tax-collector appeared to the Pharisee. “I thank
God that I am not like…this tax-collector”. How morally contemptuous his words
are! Moral contempt is far greater indignity and insult than any kind of crime.
We can feel good about our gifts, but genuine self-esteem is ruined by arrogant
self-righteousness that judges others. I once saw a poster of a powerful tawny
bearded lion with a caption: “It is so difficult to be humble”. And yet, it is
“the prayer of the humble that pierces the cloud and does not rest till it
reaches its goal” (Sir. 35:17); because only the humble can fully appreciate
the grace of God.” (His Words Lives by
Vima Dasan, SJ)
This brings us to the tax-collector and
his prayer. As was commonly known, tax collectors, though Jews, were public
employee of the Romans. They collected taxes and sent to Rome, but they had to
pay themselves by collecting more than stipulated. They made quite a decent
living for themselves but also gained a bad reputation as a result. They were
despised, hated and considered as public sinners. This man knew who he was and
was not in doubt that God knew him too. Since he had no friends, he depended on
God for everything, and so with a heavy heart, he went in to pray. He could not
even raise his eyes to God, he was unworthy. He simply beat his breast and
prayed for mercy. He saw himself, not as a sinner, but as the sinner. It was that heart-broken, self-despising prayer
that won him acceptance before God. He was at peace with God because of his
humility. For no man who is proud can pray to God.
These readings warn us against comparing
ourselves with human-beings. We should always compare ourselves to God. Our yearning in this world should always be
how to please God, not human beings. All that we are and all that we have
is pure grace and a free gift from God. Therefore, we must look down on no one,
but with the strength we have been given by God, we should work to lift people
up not pull them down. If we place our life side by side with that of our Lord
Jesus Christ, one thing will be very obvious: we are not as holy as we think;
and will soon discover that we are all sinners in need of God’s mercy and love.
We will then see ourselves as the publican at prayer, and we will soon join him
to say: “Lord be merciful to me the
sinner.”
Questions to ponder:
·
Am
I as good as God wants me to be?
·
Do
I approach God with pride or with a humble spirit?
·
What
posture best describes my attitude to God in prayer?
·
What
do I need to pray for this week?
“The
prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds; it does not rest till it reaches its
goal nor will it withdraw till the Most High responds, judges justly and
affirms the right, and the LORD will not delay” (Sir. 35:18).
“Don’t
forget to pray today because God didn’t forget to wake you up this morning”
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