Saturday, March 14, 2015
3rd Week of Lent
1st Reading: Hos 5: 15b-6:6s
Gospel: Lk 18:9–14
Jesus told another parable to some persons fully convinced of their own righteousness, who looked down on others, “Two men went up to the Temple to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and said: ‘I thank you, God, that I am not like other people, grasping, crooked, adulterous, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give the tenth of all my income to the Temple.’
“In the meantime the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast saying: ‘O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.’
“I tell you, when this man went down to his house, he had been set right with God, but not the other. For whoever makes himself out to be great will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be raised.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated
Life Experience)
The beating of breast of the tax collector in today’s Gospel passage takes us to the Calvary scene where, after Jesus gave up his spirit at Calvary, people went home beating their breasts (Luke 23:48). It is in this context that we take the act of beating of breast of the tax collector as sign of repentance. The Pharisee, on the other hand was proudly enumerating his good works before the Lord. Worse, he compared himself and elevated himself over and above the tax collector whom he lumped together with the crooked and the adulterous. The enumeration of good works failed to impress God. God bestowed his favor not upon him but upon the tax collector who admitted his sinfulness and in humility kept striking his breast in a manifestation of deep remorse for sin.
The Pharisee was not telling a lie when he said he fasted twice a week and gave the tenth of all his income to the Temple. Pharisees were that meticulous in following the law. Surely this observance of the law involving great exercise of discipline was pleasing to Jesus – he who came not to abolish the Law but to bring it to perfection. The problem with the Pharisee, however, was that he took upon himself God’s role of justification. Yes he had good works to substantiate his righteousness. But justification is God’s prerogative. “Human beings,” wrote Laurens Van Der Post, “are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right.” (From ‘The Lost World of the Kalahari’). He should just have offered his good works to God and allowed God to do the justifying. By justifying himself he pre-empted God’s role. With this preemption, what did he need God’s mercy for? s- Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website: www.frdan.org.
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