Fr. Adolph Guy sx
The 26th of October 2025 the Church joyfully celebrates the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C. For our meditation, the Church our Mother puts at our disposal the following readings: In the first reading coming from the book of Sirach 35: 12-14, 16-18, God hears the prayer of the poor. The responsorial psalm (34: 2-3, 17-18, 19, 23) goes in the same direction in emphasizing that the Lord hears and answers the cry of the poor. In the continuous reading of the second letter of Saint Paul to Timothy (4:6-8, 16-18), I mean, today’s second reading, Saint Paul perseveres in faith, confident that God will rescue him. The Holy Gospel is from Saint Luke 18: 9-14. Jesus tells the parable of the proud Pharisee who prayed from his self-importance and the tax collector who prayed humbly. After pondering upon these readings the point of prayer emerges as the theme of this Sunday. Praying to God has to do with our human condition inasmuch as we are always in need of God’s mercy no matter what we do.
Prayer is part of our human condition
One may wonder why do human beings pray. In his catechesis on Prayer which was given during his weekly general audience of May 4, 2011, Pope Benedict XVI brought to the knowledge of the faithful several examples of prayer in the ancient cultures, prior even to the advent of Christianity, to show that from time immemorial, human beings used to address prayer to God. He said: “Dear friends, in these examples of prayer of different epochs and civilizations emerge the human being’s awareness of his creatural condition and of his dependence on Another superior to him and the source of every good.” In the same audience, he added: “…human life without prayer, which opens our existence to the mystery God, lacks sense and direction.”
When you are praying
Now how to pray? This is the issue that the disciples and the first Christians in general struggled with even in the life time of the Lord Jesus. We hear them asking the Lord: “Lord, teach us to pray” (Lk 11:1) “And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others… When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words” Mt 6:6-7).
A failure and yet accepted by God
In today’s gospel, the Lord Jesus contrasts two prayers: the one of the Pharisee which is driven by pride and that of the publican which bears a whiff of humility. And the Lord Jesus praises the latter. To get the point of this parable, we need to understand to which set of people these men belonged. A Pharisee stands for, let’s say, a ‘holy person’. He/she does everything correctly or rightly, just as we have heard it in the holy gospel. while the tax collector or publican is the extreme opposite of a righteous person.
Once preaching on today’s gospel, reverend father Richard Rohr, an American Franciscan priest and writer on spirituality, jolted his audience by bringing a thought provoking illustration:
“Imagine if I got up in a Catholic suburban parish and said, ‘A man came to me who is a member of the Knights of Colombus and the St. Vincent de Paul Society, sends his children to a Catholic school, is faithful to his wife, pays all his bills on time... Then there’s another man, who isn’t doing any of these things; in fact, he’s a corrupt tax collector, a loser, a failure in every sense. One days, these two men happened to come into the church at the same time. I’m telling you that this loser, this failure, this nothing person is deemed acceptable to God and the good guy is judged unworthy!’ Can you imagine icy silence I would feel? And how they would ask the bishop to reappoint me to some other parish as soon as possible?”[1]
The inclination to pride
It sounds very dramatic, isn’t it? The Pharisee in today’s gospel presents two challenges, that is, he is proud and he despises a sinner, I mean, the tax collector. In our common parlance, the word Pharisee bears a negative connotation, like a hypocrite or someone who pretends to be somebody else than who he/she really is. However, history tells us that from the root word [perushim] or [perishut] in Hebrew, Pharisee means ‘those who separated’ or ‘those who sanctify’. Practically, among the good things, Pharisees stirred the people to live out the word of God (Torah) in their daily life and stimulated prayer in the synagogues, alongside worship in the temple.[2] The negative side of it is that, when there are commitments which require a lot of efforts that, in turn, make you belong to a limited group of people, the other side of the same coin may be pride. Spiritual masters tell us that pride is the worst sin because it tempts us to feel and to think that we don’t need God anymore because we are now equal to him. The best virtue is humility, to lower ourselves before God and to remain open ourselves to God’s love and mercy.
God hates sins but loves the sinner
The consequence of pride is discrimination and a judgmental mindset. In his prayer the man said: “I am not like other men… or even like this tax collector.” Our brother forgot that God hates sins because they are ugly and repulsive to him but God loves the sinner because the Lord Jesus came into the world that we may have eternal life (John 3:15). God is ready to leave “the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it. […] Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15: 3-7).
We cannot fool God
It is in the light of all this that we have to look at the first reading of today. “The Lord is the judge, and with him is no partiality. He will not show partiality in the case of a poor man; and he will listen to the prayer of one who is wronged.” While human beings look at the surface, God sees beyond that. The Pharisee’s prayer sounds sweet and appealing in the surface but deep inside there is pride and discrimination as we have just seen it. We can fool our fellow brothers and sisters with our external appearances but we cannot fool God. God says (Jeremiah 17:10): “I the Lord test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings.”
To be humble enough
In conclusion, let us learn from the tax collector to be humble enough to acknowledge, accept our sinfulness, and to seek God’s mercy and forgiveness. Let us be self-effaced in our commitment to God and to the Church. God will secretly reward us. Saint Paul has voiced it beautifully in this way in today’s second reading: “I have fought the fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. […] The will rescue me from every evil and save me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.” Indeed, the lowly one called, and the lord heard him.”
[1] Richard Rohr, The Good News According to Luke: Spiritual Reflections (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1997) p173.
[2] Pharisees in Illustrated Dictionary & Concordance of the Bible (The Jerusalem Publishing House Ldt: 1986) 782-783.
The 26th of October 2025 the Church joyfully celebrates the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C. For our meditation, the Church our Mother puts at our disposal the following readings: In the first reading coming from the book of Sirach 35: 12-14, 16-18, God hears the prayer of the poor. The responsorial psalm (34: 2-3, 17-18, 19, 23) goes in the same direction in emphasizing that the Lord hears and answers the cry of the poor. In the continuous reading of the second letter of Saint Paul to Timothy (4:6-8, 16-18), I mean, today’s second reading, Saint Paul perseveres in faith, confident that God will rescue him. The Holy Gospel is from Saint Luke 18: 9-14. Jesus tells the parable of the proud Pharisee who prayed from his self-importance and the tax collector who prayed humbly. After pondering upon these readings the point of prayer emerges as the theme of this Sunday. Praying to God has to do with our human condition inasmuch as we are always in need of God’s mercy no matter what we do.
Prayer is part of our human condition
One may wonder why do human beings pray. In his catechesis on Prayer which was given during his weekly general audience of May 4, 2011, Pope Benedict XVI brought to the knowledge of the faithful several examples of prayer in the ancient cultures, prior even to the advent of Christianity, to show that from time immemorial, human beings used to address prayer to God. He said: “Dear friends, in these examples of prayer of different epochs and civilizations emerge the human being’s awareness of his creatural condition and of his dependence on Another superior to him and the source of every good.” In the same audience, he added: “…human life without prayer, which opens our existence to the mystery God, lacks sense and direction.”
When you are praying
Now how to pray? This is the issue that the disciples and the first Christians in general struggled with even in the life time of the Lord Jesus. We hear them asking the Lord: “Lord, teach us to pray” (Lk 11:1) “And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others… When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words” Mt 6:6-7).
A failure and yet accepted by God
In today’s gospel, the Lord Jesus contrasts two prayers: the one of the Pharisee which is driven by pride and that of the publican which bears a whiff of humility. And the Lord Jesus praises the latter. To get the point of this parable, we need to understand to which set of people these men belonged. A Pharisee stands for, let’s say, a ‘holy person’. He/she does everything correctly or rightly, just as we have heard it in the holy gospel. while the tax collector or publican is the extreme opposite of a righteous person.
Once preaching on today’s gospel, reverend father Richard Rohr, an American Franciscan priest and writer on spirituality, jolted his audience by bringing a thought provoking illustration:
“Imagine if I got up in a Catholic suburban parish and said, ‘A man came to me who is a member of the Knights of Colombus and the St. Vincent de Paul Society, sends his children to a Catholic school, is faithful to his wife, pays all his bills on time... Then there’s another man, who isn’t doing any of these things; in fact, he’s a corrupt tax collector, a loser, a failure in every sense. One days, these two men happened to come into the church at the same time. I’m telling you that this loser, this failure, this nothing person is deemed acceptable to God and the good guy is judged unworthy!’ Can you imagine icy silence I would feel? And how they would ask the bishop to reappoint me to some other parish as soon as possible?”[1]
The inclination to pride
It sounds very dramatic, isn’t it? The Pharisee in today’s gospel presents two challenges, that is, he is proud and he despises a sinner, I mean, the tax collector. In our common parlance, the word Pharisee bears a negative connotation, like a hypocrite or someone who pretends to be somebody else than who he/she really is. However, history tells us that from the root word [perushim] or [perishut] in Hebrew, Pharisee means ‘those who separated’ or ‘those who sanctify’. Practically, among the good things, Pharisees stirred the people to live out the word of God (Torah) in their daily life and stimulated prayer in the synagogues, alongside worship in the temple.[2] The negative side of it is that, when there are commitments which require a lot of efforts that, in turn, make you belong to a limited group of people, the other side of the same coin may be pride. Spiritual masters tell us that pride is the worst sin because it tempts us to feel and to think that we don’t need God anymore because we are now equal to him. The best virtue is humility, to lower ourselves before God and to remain open ourselves to God’s love and mercy.
God hates sins but loves the sinner
The consequence of pride is discrimination and a judgmental mindset. In his prayer the man said: “I am not like other men… or even like this tax collector.” Our brother forgot that God hates sins because they are ugly and repulsive to him but God loves the sinner because the Lord Jesus came into the world that we may have eternal life (John 3:15). God is ready to leave “the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it. […] Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15: 3-7).
We cannot fool God
It is in the light of all this that we have to look at the first reading of today. “The Lord is the judge, and with him is no partiality. He will not show partiality in the case of a poor man; and he will listen to the prayer of one who is wronged.” While human beings look at the surface, God sees beyond that. The Pharisee’s prayer sounds sweet and appealing in the surface but deep inside there is pride and discrimination as we have just seen it. We can fool our fellow brothers and sisters with our external appearances but we cannot fool God. God says (Jeremiah 17:10): “I the Lord test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings.”
To be humble enough
In conclusion, let us learn from the tax collector to be humble enough to acknowledge, accept our sinfulness, and to seek God’s mercy and forgiveness. Let us be self-effaced in our commitment to God and to the Church. God will secretly reward us. Saint Paul has voiced it beautifully in this way in today’s second reading: “I have fought the fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. […] The will rescue me from every evil and save me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.” Indeed, the lowly one called, and the lord heard him.”
[1] Richard Rohr, The Good News According to Luke: Spiritual Reflections (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1997) p173.
[2] Pharisees in Illustrated Dictionary & Concordance of the Bible (The Jerusalem Publishing House Ldt: 1986) 782-783.