30th Sunday of the Year c
If you go into Waterstones you will find a whole area dedicated to Self help books: Unlocking our hidden self. Realising our inner child, and exploring who we are. These books are ok in one way but they often miss out some very important points they miss out the need for spiritual things and prayer. They often focus so much on the self that they forget the other person. In some cases they even promote being better than anyone else YOU HAVE THE POWER. To become more assertive realise ourselves in the world is important but there is a danger we can become like the Pharisee in the Gospel who prided themselves on being virtuous and despised everyone else. We all have something of this man inside us. We may feel this and think it when we see a Homeless person or someone who we class as different in anyway. I strongly believe that the power to change must come through Grace from God must come through prayer
The Gospel today shows us an interesting contrast between what is real Prayer and what is not. The Pharisee prayer is one of self praise and really you would have to ask yourself if it is a real prayer at all. The other prayer was a prayer from the heart. There is though a interesting angle we can take from this and that is how well did the Pharisee know himself and how well did the tax collector know himself
One of the things that we may assume about prayer is that God is impressed by long words and big gestures and the listeners who heard Jesus would have assumed this as well but what Jesus is saying is something different. What he is saying is that God is more impressed with the simple prayer like the one of the tax collector.
There is also has another interesting aspect the tax collector through prayer he knows himself. IF we look through history the most altogether people are the ones who have prayed from the heart they have modelled their life on Christ by being in an intimate relationship with him. We can do this by finding silence in our lives and listening to his voice.
Silence can be oppressive as a spiritual Guru said to me that it is in the silence that we really face ourselves and find the true person.
So what self help book would I write? Or maybe it has already been written and that book is the Bible. In this book by prayer and listening and reading attentively to the scriptures we not only know ourselves but also God better.
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