And I have to admit, those first few violin lessons, were very humbling. I admitted to my violin teacher that I was a bit uncomfortable and embarrassed: a grown adult, a priest, several college degrees, and I could barely get through “Mary Had a Little Lamb” without the violin sounding like I was torturing some poor animal.
After several months there was some progression and discerned that I had fulfilled my new year’s resolution. But, I really have to admit, those first few weeks, were very humbling, and very uncomfortable. The violin didn’t care about my degrees, about the time I spent visiting the sick, or teaching in the classroom. And to sit with this professional violin player was kind of embarrassing. I felt like a little child.
But, I’m so glad I risked a little embarrassment, because now I can pick up the violin every now and then—one of my favorite musical instruments—and enjoy playing it a bit.
You may have had a similar experience: learning a new skill always involves that initial moment when you feel a bit like a child. But that’s not a bad thing: children are often much more courageous than adults. They don’t worry about what people think of them, they just engage. They’ll try new things because they look fun. They play without self-regard. They quickly make new friends—they are able to do things that many adults would be humiliated over doing—but that’s the key to their joy isn’t it…not fearing humiliation.
Would we honor Saint Francis of Assisi, if he had allowed his fears of what others thought of him to control his life? If he worried about being considered “overly religious”? Or St. Paul, what if he had allowed his fear of offending the sensibilities of the Gentiles keep him from his missionary journeys. Or Saint Clare? What if she let social pressures keep her from leaving behind her family wealth to pursue radical holiness. So many of the great Saints risk humiliation, they risk failure, they risk mockery, in order to pursue true greatness.
Many of our young people do not consider entering the religious life or going to the seminary. “What will they think of me if I joined the monastery.” But, in the Christian life, each one of us absolutely needs to ask ourselves: do I want to be great in the eyes of the world, or in the eyes of God?
I pray that fear—fear of being considered “overly religious” or—is not keeping anyone here from become more active in the life of holiness and the life of the parish. The parish needs your creativity, the parish needs your efforts and your mistakes, the Church needs your Courage.
In today’s Gospel of the Pharisee and the tax collector, Jesus praises the child-like humility of the tax collector while denouncing the arrogance of the Pharisee.
Here are two men, both go to Temple, both go to church, both engage in something they call prayer, but one is pleasing in the eyes of God and one is not.
There is a parallel here with Cain and Abel. Remember, all the way back in the beginning of Genesis: both Cain and Abel offer sacrifices to God, but only Abel’s sacrifice was found pleasing to God, while Cain’s was not. For Abel’s sacrifice was filled with faith and love, while Cain’s was not.
Similarly with the Pharisee: his prayer in the Gospel today is filled with self-congratulation and ridicule of those he judges as lower than himself, while the tax-collector, becomes childlike and takes the lowest place, recognizing that before God he is but a humble sinner and only God can save Him.
The Pharisee acts as if the point of prayer is to talk about how great he is, instead of approaching God, humbly like the tax collector to recognize how great God is.
The tax collector thus teaches us an indispensable lesson for the Christian life: we must start off each day beating our breast, saying, “God, I don’t know what I’m doing here, I’m just a lowly sinner. Teach me. Teach me how to pray. Teach me how to live.”
Notice, too that, the tax collector beats his breast, as he says “O God, be merciful to me a sinner”. Be merciful to me. Have mercy. We say those words at the beginning of every Mass. Lord, have mercy. We begin Mass with those words, with that gesture, with that posture of humility because that attitude is to animate the whole of our lives.
Beating our breasts in humble admission of one’s lowliness, of one’s sinfulness, symbolizes our desire to break down the barrier between our heart and God’s heart. Whatever it takes Lord, break the hardness in my heart, break the coldness, break the selfishness, break the attachment to sin, whatever it takes, even if it requires me being humiliated.
It’s not easy to admit that we are sinners. It requires us to admit our faults, our wrongs: it’s humbling. As hard as it is, as hard as it is to go Sacramental Confession after a particularly embarrassing sin, humbling ourselves before God is often the beginning of something great. Humility allows God’s power to begin to change us, fill us, and bring us true joy.
The proud Pharisee is impervious to growth because he doesn’t believe he can grow—or needs to grow—he knows everything, he believes he already is better than everybody. The Pharisees throughout the Gospels fail to recognize that Jesus is God because the Pharisee doesn’t really acknowledge a god outside of himself. And like Cain, the Pharisee becomes a murderer of his brother, condemning Jesus to an unjust death.
The Lord concludes the parable by teaching, “whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” The Christian who recognizes his need for God’s mercy, who becomes like the child before God, like the tax collector shall experience exaltation in eternity; while those who go throughout life convinced of their own self-righteousness, like the Pharisee, shall be humbled when Christ returns as judge. There can be no spiritual growth without humility, there can be no salvation without recognizing one’s need for a savior.
At holy Mass, today, at every holy Mass, we have a choice: do we come here, entering God’s Temple, in the spirit of the Pharisee or the tax collector. The one who keeps God out, or welcomes God into one’s heart, one’s soul—the one who feigns perfection, or the one who acknowledges sin. May all that is Pharisaical be transformed by God’s love for us and our willingness to practice humility and faith for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
