Homily Notes - 08-01-2021: Humility of the Publican

August 1st, 2021
Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Today’s gospel gives us a good look into the spiritual life by comparing the difference between the Publican and the Pharisee.

According to society, the Pharisees were the "ideal.” They studied the law and knew the most about the Jewish religion. They served in the temple, made important decisions, and did many acts of public mortification.  The Publicans were despised by the Jews because they worked with the Romans to collect taxes. They were tax collectors, which was bad enough, but they also worked with the Romans. They were hated for these two reasons.

Our Lord uses these two people as an example for us.  Jesus was speaking to those "who trusted in themselves as just, and despised others...” He spoke to enlighten these people about themselves, but the same applies to us. This gospel was written for us.

Is the spiritual life about externals?

Your first answer is probably no -- it’s not about externals. That’s true to some degree, yet externals are still important. The essential is the spiritual: our intellect and will. Yet externals remain important, too.

The reason for this is because we are human beings with both bodies and souls. We are not only spiritual, like angels. Angels can’t worship God in a physical way because they have no physical body. For man, we have both body and soul, and since both are part of our nature, we use both to worship and honor God. 

Our bodily attitudes affect how we worship and pray. If we put ourselves in certain circumstances, it becomes difficult to pray. For example, you’re not going to pray in the middle of a basketball game with all the distraction and noise around you. The atmosphere that we put ourselves in effects how we pray.  It is more difficult to pray when the physical atmosphere is not conducive to prayer.

So the externals are not the essentials, but they do keep our attention focused.

Looking at the Gospel, we can apply these truths of the spiritual life. We see these two individuals. The Pharisee lives a life of external religious practices: I am just, I tithe, I fast, etc. The Gospel is not condemning these practices — these things are good and necessary. We must have external actions of our internal virtues. However, if not done in the proper spirit or for the right reasons, they are useless. They cannot be done just so others will see and praise our actions. The Pharisee cared more about what others thought of him than what God thinks of him. 

And external actions are not enough to save us. God calls us to something more. We can’t be only just, but also have to be charitable. We can’t just abstain from sin, but also have to practice virtue. We can’t just tithe, but have to be generous. It’s not enough to just fast, but truly deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow Our Lord.

The publican, on the other hand, is different. He stays in the back of the temple, falls to his knees, strikes his breast, and begs for mercy. He admits his sins, admits his faults, takes responsibility for them and resolves to change. He’s sorry and he wants to change. As Our Lord says, he’s humble. He’s not comparing himself to others, he’s not lowering God’s standards to his level. And so he goes away forgiven. 

Humility is the most difficult thing to practice because it strives to see ourselves as God sees us. Humility looks at God as the ideal, not to others.

What is God calling us to do?

We ourselves tend to be more like the Pharisee than the publican.  We think we are better than all than other people, maybe because we pray more, or maybe even because we go to the Latin Mass.

The publican doesn’t say anything about other people, and the only thing he says about himself is that he’s a sinner.

For ourselves, our Lord is calling us to take responsibility for our actions. We are called to act in every way for God’s sake. We are responsible for our thoughts.  We need to keep them focused on God. We need to take responsibility for our faults before God and our neighbor, we are responsible for them. If we take responsibility for our sins and turn to God in true repentance, we will be forgiven. 

The Publican doesn’t attempt to justify himself. He has a bad reputation but he isn’t trying to justify the things he’s condemned of.  He doesn’t even bring up any of these things. He simply turns to God and admits his sins.

We must learn to change our lives to better serve God and neighbor. Today we live in a world that is selfish and enraptured with “self” and sometimes we get immediately defensive if anyone says something negative about us. Instead, take the time to listen and realize that maybe some of what they say is true, maybe I do need to change something in my life.

Turn to prayer, because God alone can give us the strength to truly change. Prayer is a habit that we must develop. We won’t save our souls without daily prayer. We need scheduled prayers. Make sure they take place. If we don’t make a regular act of prayer, our prayers become external practices we do on Sunday and not truly interior, not a true expression of what’s going on in our soul.

The parable concludes: this man went down justified. Justification means he was sanctified with grace because he had a true conversion of heart; not merely external but also interior, one that truly effected all of his actions. We see this with many saints where they had an intense moment of conversion that changed everything.

Turn away from bad habits of sin and form good habits of virtue. Learn to change. Learn to serve God better.