Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time, (LK. 18: 9-14) “Perfection or Compassion?”
Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Lk. 18:9-14) “Perfection or Compassion?”
“Mirror, mirror on the wall who is the fairest one of all.” The words are those of the evil queen in the movie Snow White. The queen believes that she is the most beautiful one in the land. When she finds out that someone else is, it drives her into a murderous rage.
Seems a little extreme. We find, though, that a lot of us are guilty of the deadly sin of pride. Or, we find that we can be quite judgmental. When we are driven by our ego, we tend to be constantly dissatisfied with whatever we do. Life is a constant competition. We need motivation to get things done, but if we need to be better than everyone else in order to feel good about ourselves that can lead to problems in our spiritual life.
Why do we get up in the morning? Why do we go to school? Why do we try to excel at our occupations? For many of us it is because we have been told all our lives that we need to maximize our abilities. We need to believe in ourselves and what we can accomplish. The worst thing is to be labeled a loser. If a child is labeled as gifted, they may feel like they must always win if they are going to be a worthwhile person. Self-worth can revolve around succeeding at everything. Despair can come with any failure. Such attitudes can deplete our spirits.
We see that played out in today’s parable. The Pharisee comes to the temple. He prays in thanksgiving. But what is he thankful for. He is thankful that he is more moral, more prayerful, more holy than anyone he has met. He knows he is better because he can see the publican who is praying near him. Conventional wisdom would say that the Pharisee’s prayer of thanksgiving isn’t necessarily out of place. We can catch ourselves praying the same way. Giving thanks is an appropriate way to start any prayer. But what are we thankful for. Maybe we pray thanking God that we aren’t caught in a war zone like those in the Ukraine. Maybe we thank God that we aren’t a vagrant living in the street. We might thank God that we aren’t addicted like people we know. Our gratitude can flow from the problems we don’t have.
The tax collector’s prayer seems appropriate as well. We can speculate that he had been constantly scorned by others his whole life. He was considered a sinner by others because of his profession. Like a prostitute, like a person who is disgraced after being arrested and having their picture in the paper, the publican’s sin is there for all to see. Why shouldn’t he start off with a prayer of sorrow? But Jesus’ parable upends that sort of thinking.
The tax collector’s prayer is consoling while the Pharisee’s isn’t. What is the key? The key is that one man is humble the other isn’t. St. Theresa of Avila uses a chess analogy when she reflects on the spiritual life. In chess the Queen is the most powerful piece on the board. Capturing the king is the way one wins the game. St. Theresa said once, “Humility is the Queen without which no one can ever checkmate the divine King.” True humility is key to the spiritual life.
Humility doesn’t mean that we must beat ourselves down with self-criticism. We don’t have to constantly review all our faults. Nor does it mean that we can’t take pride in our obvious gifts. The chief aspect of humility is that we have an accurate picture of ourselves.
When we look in the mirror, we don’t turn away disappointed at what we see. We also don’t have to start off each day by looking in the mirror giving ourselves a pep talk about how wonderful we are. But we look in the mirror and we say to ourselves, “Ecce homo.” Behold the human being, a person like all other people. We can say, I am a mixed bag of good and bad. I am like the rest of humanity struggling to find my way. I am loved by God because God loves everyone. I am human with all the baggage and blessings that come from that. I am not perfect. But that is to be expected. The question is can I love myself as I am? And can I love my neighbor as they are?
Despite what we might have been taught. Our spiritual life isn’t about perfecting ourselves. Our spiritual life is about accepting ourselves. Jesus said Matthew 5:48, “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” The original Hebrew is better translated this way, “Be compassionate as your heavenly Father is compassionate.” And the person we extend compassion to first is ourselves because God is compassionate to everyone of us at every moment.
Reflection Questions:
1. Am I competitive? Is that always bad?
2. Do I accept myself? What does that mean to me?
Dear Parishioners,
The end of October is coming quickly. This is the end of pro-life month. Death is a part of life. We have had a lot of funerals in our parish this month which seems ironic. Pillars of our community have passed away as have people who were more anonymous.
It was said once that we can tell a lot about a society’s treatment of the living by how they treat their dead. We need rituals so that we might be able to process our grief. We need not let go of our deceased loved ones too quickly. Our culture likes everything to be quick. Process is not valued. The length of the grieving process cannot be charted or predicted. In fact, it never really ends. Grief only becomes less acute.
We have a couple of rituals that might aid us in our grief work. Next week we will be erecting an altar of the dead. This is a custom from Mexico and other countries south of us. A temporary altar is built in the home and pictures of dead relatives are placed on it with candles and other holy objects. Families can gather at the altar on All Souls Day to pray. We will have such an altar in our church starting next weekend.
We also will celebrate our annual Mass of Remembrance on November 5th at 4 p.m. We pray for everyone who has died in our parish the past year. We invite you to come and participate.
As we pray for all the saints, we also pray for all the souls that have gone before us. This is a wonderful way to express our grief and our confidence in the Lord’s promise of eternal life.
May Our Lady of Sorrows walk with us during this special time of year.
Fr. Mark