30th Sunday of Ordinary Time

The Pharisee and the Tax Collector. Lk 18:9-14

The Pharisee and the tax collector are two unique individuals who turn our images of holiness and sin, saint and sinner upside-down.  

At first glance the Pharisees' piety was pretty admirable. He tithed ten per cent of his income. He fasted two days a week. And he visited the Temple often. Outwardly he was the model religious person.  The tax collector however was another story. He worked for the Romans who oppressed the Jews and occupied their land. He extorted people to get a better commission and this was probably one of the rare times that he ever darkened the doors of the temple.

Yet the tax collector was the one who went home justified before God! Perhaps the distance between a saint and a sinner is not that great. The greatest danger in being someone who practices their religion is to think that we have arrived at holiness and left our sins behind. And the greatest danger in being someone who does not practice their Faith is to think that we can never become holy!

If we are the practicing Catholic who gives alms and goes to Church and abstains from meat on Friday and who goes to confession; then we must never forget the sins we have left behind are always at our doorstep. 

If we are the tax collector, the person who never really goes to Church or thinks of God too often because of our love for pleasure and money, we must never forget that holiness is always within our grasp if only we acknowledge our need for God's mercy..

In the end it does not really matter which one we are, the Pharisee or the tax collector or somewhere in between because God's Mercy is always there just waiting for us to ask for it!