Saturday of 3rd Week in Lent

 

God Sees What It Is In Us    

We cannot save ourselves by rites and practices. Sin is forgiven and lasting happiness found in an encounter of love with God. If we recognize that we are sinners, people who have failed at times and who could do better, we recognize that our love is still very limited, and then, there is room for growth. God bandages our wounds and raises us to life. He saves us from our failures. He makes us grow in the life of Christ.

                

First Reading: Hosea 6:1-7 

 “Come on, let’s go back to God.
    He hurt us, but he’ll heal us.
He hit us hard,
    but he’ll put us right again.
In a couple of days we’ll feel better.
    By the third day he’ll have made us brand-new,
Alive and on our feet,
    fit to face him.
We’re ready to study God,
    eager for God-knowledge.
As sure as dawn breaks,
    so sure is his daily arrival.
He comes as rain comes,
    as spring rain refreshing the ground.”

 “What am I to do with you, Ephraim?
    What do I make of you, Judah?
Your declarations of love last no longer
    than morning mist and predawn dew.
That’s why I use prophets to shake you to attention,
    why my words cut you to the quick:
To wake you up to my judgment
    blazing like light.
I’m after love that lasts, not more religion.
    I want you to know God, not go to more prayer meetings.
You broke the covenant—just like Adam!
    You broke faith with me—ungrateful wretches!

 

Gospel: Luke 18:9-14 

He told his next story to some who were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people: “Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax man. The Pharisee posed and prayed like this: ‘Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man. I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.’

 “Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, ‘God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.’”

Jesus commented, “This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face, but if you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself.”

 

Prayer

Lord, our God,
you yourself remind us through your holy people
that all our religious practices,
even this Eucharistic sacrifice,
are not worth anything
if we use them to bend you our way.
God, may we come to you
in humility and repentance,
ready to encounter you in love
and to turn your way.
Accept us as your sons and daughters,
together with Jesus Christ,
your Son and our Lord for ever. Amen.

 

Reflection:

Worship God and not the self
“God, I thank you”. This is a great beginning for a prayer because the best prayer is that of gratitude. Immediately, though, we see the reason why the Pharisee gives thanks: “that I am not like other men” (Lk 18:11).

Pharisaism is not about a particular people or a particular religious tradition. It’s the human condition that infects all people and all religious traditions. It is real today as it was in Jesus’ times. It deceives us into trusting in ourselves, seeing ourselves as righteous while looking at others with contempt. When I play the Pharisee, the only right way is always my way, or the way of my country, the way of my religion, the way of my church.

Pharisaism is the mother of profiling, be it on the basis of race, gender or religion. Profiling happens when I look at the appearance, accent, lifestyle or life-choices, faith, beliefs and practices of another human being and make conclusions and judgments about his or her value, dignity, motives and desires, intelligence and abilities, holiness and goodness.

Those conclusions and judgments are always in my favour and against the other. This is what the Pharisee is doing to the tax collector in today’s gospel. “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income to the temple.” He boasts because he fulfils particular commandments but forgets the greatest commandment: to love God and our neighbour.

The tragedy of this man is that he is without love. Without love, he ends up praising himself instead of praying. In fact, he asks nothing from the Lord because he does not feel needy or in debt, but he feels that God owes something to him. He stands in the temple of God, but he worships a different god: himself. And many “prestigious” groups, “Catholic Christians”, go along this path.

For the Pharisee, his neighbour has no worth, no value. He considers himself better than others. They are “leftovers”, they are scraps from which they prefer to keep a distance. How many times do we see this happening in life and history! The true worship of God is always expressed in love of one’s neighbour. Let us examine ourselves and see whether we too may think that someone is inferior and can be tossed aside, even if only in our words. Let us pray for the grace not to consider ourselves superior, not to believe that we are better than others. Let us ask Jesus to heal us from speaking ill and complaining about others. Because these things are displeasing to God.

 

Video available on Youtube: Worship God and not the self