In today’s Gospel, two men go up to the Temple. One asks for something, the other doesn’t ask for anything. If you look at what the Pharisee is actually saying, he isn’t asking for anything, he is just telling God what God already knows. His description of himself is very superficial. Firstly he describes himself in terms what he is not: “I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like the rest of mankind.†When he does speak about himself, it is about what he does – fasting, tithing – not about what he is. In both ways, he fails to touch his own reality. He is not in fact praying to God but to himself, as Jesus says. The tax collector is the one who is praying to God, and because he is in the presence of God, he asks for something. He asks for mercy. Strangely he is more self-absorbed that the Pharisee. The Pharisee is distracted from thinking about himself, being too busy noticing everybody else’s sin. The tax collector simply talks about his own sinfulness.
We are called to prayer, then, and prayer is not difficult. It is not difficult; but it may be impossible. The Pharisee does not pray because he does not consider himself. This is why mediaval writers often spoke of prayer in terms of a mirror. We see something of ourselves in prayer. We see our sins, in part, but we also see the mercy of God, which is always greater than our sins. This is more than a matter of feelings. It is not a feeling but a conviction. A conviction that whatever sins we commit, God is never short of mercy, and God’s mercy not only forgives our sins, but gathers them into God’s purpose in founding the kingdom.