A Homily for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

+ There are two discourses recounted in the Holy Gospel of this Mass. One is long, one is very short.

The longer discourse, of the Pharisee, uses the word “I” constantly – no fewer than five times. It instructs God in the Pharisee’s supposed righteousness. It asks for nothing. It gives Almighty God no opening. The Pharisee, seemingly, has no need of God’s help.
 
The shorter discourse, of the publican, does not use the word “I”. It begs God’s mercy. Almighty God is welcome.  He is humbly implored to come to the aid of this sinner.
 
Our Lord teaches us that is the latter, the sinful publican, who left the Temple justified in the sight of God, for he who humbles himself will be exalted.
 
My brothers and sisters, there is a very clear lesson in the true nature of prayer here. If my prayer is a discourse about myself to Almighty God, so be it – but it will yield little or nothing by way of God’s grace. Whereas, if my prayer truly invites God to do in me what he can and must do for my salvation, if we are truly humble enough to beg and allow Him to work in us and through us, we have Our Lord’s assurance that we shall be justified in the sight of God.
 
Saint Benedict teaches his monks to “supplicate the Lord God of all things with humility and pure devotion.”  “Let us be sure that we shall not be heard for our much speaking,” he insists, “but for purity of heart and tears of compunction.” “Our prayer, therefore, ought to be short and pure,” he enjoins. (Rule, ch. 20)
 
Prayer is not about me. The life of grace is not about me. No: it is about God. It is about what God can and shall give to me and do with and through me if only I allow Him so to do.
 
This is why the most perfect and efficacious form of prayer, the Sacred Liturgy, has an objectivity which may never be subjected to an individual ego, or even to that of a particular group. Accordingly, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “No sacramental rite may be modified or manipulated at the will of the minister or the community. Even the supreme authority in the Church may not change the liturgy arbitrarily, but only in the obedience of faith and with religious respect for the mystery of the liturgy.” (n. 1125)
 
The Liturgy is not what about what I do: it is about what Almighty God does in and for us – us, ecclesially by means of our baptism, as members of the Church – through our conscious and actual participation in the Church’s sacred rites. When it is “I” who stand up in the Temple and perform – individually or collectively – God’s work is inhibited. When we humbly worship God as worthily as we are able, His work in me brings forth abundant fruit.

This principle – that the life of Grace is not about me, but about what Almighty God wishes and can do in me, for me and through me if only “I” humble myself – applies well beyond the life of prayer and public worship. It is fundamental to our daily Christian discipleship and perseverance – perhaps no more clearly than in the question of my response to God’s call to follow him in this or that particular vocation.
 
For if “I” am at the centre of vocational discernment, if “I” am forever standing up posing questions or demanding certainties about the future, God has no chance to work in and through me. He calls us to follow Him, not according to our own agenda, but according to His Plan for us – a plan that will unfold in time, indeed over a lifetime, and which we have no right to demand to see in advance. He who humbles himself before God’s call shall be exalted. He who exalts himself before the will of God humiliates himself.
 
No matter at which point my pilgrimage on earth finds me this morning, no matter how badly I may have responded thus far to God’s call, no matter how sinful I may have been, through the words and example of the publican Our Lord offers me hope: “God, be merciful to me a sinner.” As we kneel before this altar in adoration and supplication at this Holy Mass, we can do no better than to allow these words to help us to embrace that humility which we so desperately need in order that Almighty God may transform us into whom and what He wishes us to become. +

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