Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, C October 27, 2019
Fr. Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
The battle continues. Last week, Christ called us to the combat of perseverance in our prayer. This week is the battle against pride.. Pride is often subtle and those filled with it rarely see themselves clearly enough to know it. So, here are some practical ways to keep your personal prayer free from pride.
Don’t compare yourself to others. The reality is that you are unique. Your relationship with God is unique. There are things about you and your relationship with God that no one will ever know. Likewise, every other person has their unique relationship with God. So, what you see in others is never the full story. Even what you think you see in yourself is usually not the full story.
Yes, there are objective moral standards that every person must follow. Yes, there are certain spiritual practices that every person should use. But the interior dynamic is always personal. It’s always wrong to look at another person and say, “at least I pray more than him” or “at least I take my faith more seriously than her.” You don’t know that. It might look like it. The pharisee in this parable certainly had plenty “evidence” on his side, but he was wrong. And even if you are right, you can’t know that; It is not your place to make that evaluation. You don’t know what kind of inner psychological struggles they face. It could very well be that they try twice as hard as you, but only get half the visible results because they face an uphill battle and hidden challenges. God alone can evaluate that. Leave it to him.
Even when you think someone is better than you, it can be dangerous. It’s one thing to be inspired by someone, it’s another to compare yourself. Even if it makes you look worse by comparison, putting yourself in the place of judging who is better can lead to pride. Even when St. Paul says to regard others as better than yourselves, he doesn’t mean for you to constantly compare yourself to them. He means to assume the default position of service and respect as you would to a superior. He means to see them with charity and the best interpretation. Don’t waste your precious prayer time comparing yourself to others.
Closely related to that is this: don’t brag to God. This pharisee lists off his accomplishments. But nothing we do on our own can impress God. Any good we do depends on his grace in the first place. Trying to take credit for it is just silly, like a child who brags that his parents are rich – as if he had anything to do with it!
Not that we shouldn’t strive to do the things the Pharisee does. Tithing, fasting, praying – these are good things we must strive to do. But when we do them, we don’t brag about them. We offer them to God humbly. We say, “I did this because I love you, it’s not perfect, but I hope you like it.” Of course he’ll like that, despite its imperfection. We do our best, offer our best to God, and then leave it alone. Don’t brag to God. Instead, offer your efforts humbly and move on.
Always ask for mercy. Our default position in prayer is reliance on God’s grace and mercy. It’s why Mass begins with the penitential rite. Whenever you pray, it’s good to ask for mercy and even to ask him to help you to pray. It doesn’t have to be the only thing you pray, but it should always be a part of your prayer – a reminder that we always need his grace and forgiveness to do anything good.
Be sincere, not showy. Jesus highlights where they stand in the temple. The pharisee gets up close and stands where he can be seen. He isn’t acting sincerely, he’s being pretentious and putting on airs about his holiness – trying to “look the part” of a holy-rolling pharisee. The tax collector, however, is being sincere. He genuinely feels his sinfulness and fear, so he’s in the back with eyes down, begging for mercy.
But don’t judge appearances! Don’t assume every pious display is automatically false. By the same token, don’t assume that just sitting in the back is proof of humility. It can also be laziness or even a general repulsion for holy things, which is another form of pride. Like I said, don’t compare and don’t judge. When you pray, pray sincerely: whatever you think or feel, share it with God sincerely and without focusing on what it looks like. That doesn’t mean be a slave to your feelings – you should still pray when you don’t feel like it – but be honest with the content of your prayer. Be sincere in your effort at Mass or personal prayer without getting caught up on how good or bad it makes you look.
Finally, make sure you’re actually praying to God, not just talking to yourself. Jesus says the pharisee “spoke this prayer to himself.” Our minds are tricky. We all have this constant inner monologue, talking to ourselves when not focused on something else. The thing is, we are so used to thinking to ourselves that we can end up praying to ourselves. C.S. Lewis used to talk about the “sleeping dragons of thought” that got in the way of real thinking. Often, when we try to think about something, we find ourselves thinking about the thinking rather than the thing itself.
In a similar way, when we pray – if we’re not careful – we can end up thinking or talking about prayer, rather than actually praying. And this opens us up to all sorts of traps and feeling like we’re so great and we start to trust in ourselves. It takes a conscious effort, a deliberate act of the will to keep turning our attention outward and upward. It often takes multiple deliberate choices to stay focused on him. It takes an act of faith; you have to believe God is there to be able to talk to him. And when you talk to him, don’t compare yourself to others, don’t brag, ask for mercy, and be sincere.
It might help to open up your prayer like this: “God, I believe you’re there, help my unbelief. Have mercy on me a sinner and give me the grace to pray well.” And then continue to pray, to converse with God, to battle against yourself and your pride. Pray. Keep praying. Pray humbly. Know that, if you do this, God hears you and He looks forward to the day when He will exalt you and give you more than you could ever imagine.