Are We Doing All the Lenten Practice to Return to God or to Please Our Pride?: Lenten Self-Diagnose - Saturday of the Third Week of Lent

You pray every day, fast during every Friday, and give alms generously. You read Bible daily and attend Mass not only on Sundays but also weekdays. And other parishioners regard you as a model Catholic.

 On one occasion, you were speaking with other parishioners.

 One of the parishioners said to you, “I really wish I were like you, because you pray, fast, and do almsgiving, so perfectly. And everybody admires you. It is always a struggle for me to keep up with prayer. And I often fail to fast. I know I am kinda stingy when it comes to giving alms.”

 Now, as you hear this, how do you feel about yourself?

 Superior than this parishioner, who often forgets to pray and fast and give alms less than you do?

 If that is the case with you, you sure find yourself in today’s Gospel Reading (Luke18:9-14) and what Jesus would have to say about you.

 Do you think Jesus would say, “You are doing a great job with your faith!  Keep up the good work! And be a model for others to look up to!”?

 If that is the case, then, you may have missed what Jesus intends to say in Luke 18:9-14, the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.

 In this parable, there are two, praying in the Temple: the Pharisee and the tax collector. The Pharisee, taking up a good position, says in his prayer,” O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity – greedy, dishonest, adulterous – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income” (Luke 18:11-12). On the other hand, the tax collector stands far from the Pharisee, looking down and beating his breast, says in his prayer, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner”(Luke 18:13).

 Comparing these two, Jesus’s verdict is that the tax collector is justified but the Pharisee is not (Luke 18:14a).

 Why the Pharisee, who pray, fast, and tithe, better than anyone, cannot be justified, while the tax collector, who is a sinner, is justified?

 Jesus says: For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted (Luke 18:14b).

 This Gospel Reading, the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9-14) reminds that superficial Lenten observance is meaningless and not acceptable to God. This teaching is a reiteration of Jesus’ teaching in the Ash Wednesday Gospel Reading (Mathew 6:1-6, 16-18) and echoes this line from today’s First Reading (Hosea 6:1-6):

 For it is loyalty that I desire, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings (6:6).

 God desires us to get to know Him more so that we can become more loyal to Him. God does not like us to offer heartless ritual offerings, whether sacrificial offering or offering our prayers – even we pray, fast, and tithe or give alms, to our satisfaction.

 God prefer to have sinners, who repent and show their willingness to know Him more through His mercy and stay loyal to Him, rather than those who appear righteous for “perfect” practice of faith to feed their own pride, not their desire to be closer to Him. In fact, the First Reading (Hoses 6:1-6) is a poetic expression of God’s desire to have sinners back and to help them to be restored in His mercy, upon a short period of chastisement, hoping that they will remain loyal to Him henceforth.

 To God, those whose hearts are not with Him are not worth justification. Their own pride has already justified them, and they live in an illusion that God prefer them to sinners. No matter how perfectly they pray, fast, and tithe, these are empty heartless rituals to God.

 Of course, it is important that we strive in our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, and more, as acts of our faith, to perfection. However, some of us get lost in this strive, as pride kicks in to develop a sense of superiority. Then, our practice of faith will deviate from the right path of our humility to satisfy God’s desire to a wrong path of satisfying our own pride.

 Yes, we need to do our best in our prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and all the more, as commanded by God. But, we can spoil them all if we lose our humility. Our pride can destroy all things we do in our faith – even we do everything perfectly.

Because He is merciful, God never tires us coming to and coming back to Him, seeking His help with our humble and contrite hearts, sincere desire to have intimate loyalty with Him. However, God is tired of the hypocritical self-righteous coming to boast about themselves in their practice of faith.

We must ask ourselves: Are we doing all the Lenten practice out of our genuinely contrite heart? Or are we doing all this to make us appear more pious than others to please our own pride?