Be Merciful to Me
Guilt. Shame. Hopelessness. These are the things that can weigh us down and may even paralyze us. In today's Gospel reading , Jesus tells a parable about a Pharisee and a tax collector who are in the temple. The Pharisee begins to pray out loud thanking God that he is not like the other sinful people and not like the tax collector. We are told that the tax collector kept his head down, "beat his breast and prayed, 'O God, be merciful to me a sinner .'" Jesus told the crowd that the tax collector went home justified and not the Pharisee. What's the point of Jesus' parable? Sometimes we may feel entitled and we begin to allow our pride to take over, judging others and thinking we are better than them. Even when we reflect we may sometimes say "I know I'm a sinner, but at least I did not kill anyone or did anything as bad as that guy." That is no different than what the Pharisee said. Though it may be true that what you did ...