One Went Home Justified

This is a computer-generated transcription that has been included to make the homily searchable.  It has not been verified by the author. 

“I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, and not the other.” So, two men who seemed to be doing the same thing, they’re both going up to the temple to pray, but with very different results. One, something great has happened, He’s now justified, and the other thinks he’s justified and he isn’t. And so, we could think, for instance, of ourselves, that we’re all here at Mass, but our personal actions and attitudes make a big difference about what happens in our soul as we come. And so, there’s some key lessons to learn in this gospel, I can focus on three points. And the first point is our Lord showing us what not to do. And he gives the example of a Pharisee. And he says, the Gospel says He’s speaking to those “who trusted in themselves, that they were righteous and despised others.” “Who trusted in themselves, that they were righteous and despised others.” You know, it’s such a common motivational speech in our society to tell us to trust in ourselves. And here Jesus, that’s precisely who he’s aiming at, those who trust, it says, in themselves, believing that they are righteous and despised others. So, he thinks he’s righteous, and he leaves not justified. And the one who thinks is not righteous, is the one who leaves justified. And so, this is showing us this great danger of pride in the spiritual life. And we have this, Jesus gives us because as God, He’s listened to a lot of prayers, right? I mean, you know, even we are, most of our prayers are secret, it’s between us and God, but God’s heard a lot of prayers. And so, He gives us, this is a parable, but He’s giving us an example of a lot of prayers He must have heard. He said, “God, I thank You that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector, I fast twice a week and I give tithes on all that I get.” So I’m pretty great, and I’m sure that you, God, know that, and so we can rejoice together in my greatness. And so again, Jesus is God. He’s heard these prayers. He’s heard these hearts. And so He knows what the attitude, this dangerous attitude, and it’s a danger in the spiritual life when we, like, maybe a person has a conversion, or decides that they want to live their faith fully, and oftentimes to help us in that God gives us gifts to start on that path, gifts of like protecting us from temptations. Maybe temptations that we struggled with before are no longer there, or at least for a while, they’re no longer there, and we think we’ve overcome them. St John of the Cross talks about this. He says that often, at the beginning of that journey, God might kind of make certain temptations, like protect a person from those temptations, and a person thinks they’ve overcome the temptations. It’s not that they’ve overcome them, but they’re just being shielded from them for for a while to help them begin this new path. And so, in those situations, the devil often changes his tactics. Instead of making us fall into very evident sins, he uses this much more subtle tactic of tempting us by spiritual pride, of making us think how great we are. And so, this is the first example that and the danger, danger, and again, whenever a person is taking their spiritual life seriously and then maybe sensing that they’re making progress, then there’s always this danger of spiritual pride. So, Jesus is putting us on guard against that. And then He’s giving us, after telling us what not to do, then He gives us two key points about what to do. and what to do, in both for our personal and spiritual life. And these two points are so, well, two of the three key virtues that the Lord is asking of us here at the Mission of Divine Mercy that He wants us to focus on, because I think that they’re especially necessary right now for what is going on in our world and in our Church. So, Jesus gives us the model of this tax collector, and that’s we don’t realize how shocking that would be to His listeners, the Pharisees who consider themselves the holy ones. Jesus is using them as a bad example, and then the ones to give the good example, Jesus is speaking of a tax collector. So, he is not this person. he is not a perfect person, he knows he is a sinner. But what does he do? What does Jesus want us to learn from him? And so we see in him an attitude of humility. So that’s the key point, humility. It says, “the tax collector, standing far off would not even lift his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.’” So instead of giving God the list of all the great things he’s doing, he is recognizing his sins. And that’s a very positive step, to recognize the truth of our sins. It’s an act that begins a process of liberation. By recognizing the truth of our sinfulness, it’s a path to liberate ourselves from that sinfulness by that act of humility. But sometimes there’s mistaken ideas about what humility is. And so, I think I want to read you several passages from St Faustina that help clarify, first of all, what humility is not. She says, “when, at the beginning of my religious life, following the novitiate, I began to exercise myself, particularly in humility.” So she’s trying, she’s new, and she’s really trying to be humble. “The humiliations that God sent me were not enough for me, and so in my excessive zeal, I looked for more of them on my own, and I often represented myself to my superiors other than I was in reality”. So, she’s trying to make herself look worse than she really is, even to the point of kind of, usually we try to make ourselves look better than we really are. She’s trying to make herself look worse than she is. “But a short time later, Jesus gave me to know that humility is only the truth.” So, humility doesn’t require us to try to make us look worse than we are, but it’s simply being truthful. She says, in her excessive zeal, so she’s saying that “the humiliations that God sent me were not enough for me.” Some of us feel that the humiliations that God sends us are plenty enough for us. So, God gives us many opportunities for humility. Here at our little Mission of Divine Mercy, I think God gives us too generously, sometimes opportunities for humility. And so, God gives us lots of opportunities, and we should accept those opportunities, but not invent things to make ourselves look worse. And then she also says that it’s not cringing. She says, “I never cringe before anyone. I can’t bear flattery. For humility is nothing but the truth. There is no cringing in true humility.” So again, it’s not by trying to make ourselves look worse. She says, “although I consider myself the least in the whole convent, on the other hand, I enjoy the honor of being the Bride of Christ.” So, on the one hand, she feels her own sinfulness, and on the other hand, she feels the honor of being the Bride of Christ. “Little matter that I often hear people say that I am proud, for I know that human judgment does not discern motives for our actions.” So, she is suffering because a lot of people, she said are thinking that she’s proud, but she realizes that they don’t know her heart. And so that’s one of the humiliations we often experience is that we might be doing something for a good motive, but other people might think that it’s not a good motive. And then she goes on to say, “when the soul recognizes that of itself, it is only wretchedness and nothingness.” So again, she’s talking about the soul, not the body so much, but the soul, what it is of itself. And she says, “it’s only, of itself, it is only wretchedness and nothingness.” And you don’t hear many motivational speeches say that right, that of yourself, you’re just wretched, a gift from God. So, it’s not denying that there is true good that we have in us through gifts, talents, qualities, virtues, but that those are a gift from God. “When the soul sees that everything is given it freely, that the only thing it has of itself is its own misery. All the good that I have comes from God. What comes just from me is my own misery.” She says, “This is what sustains it in a continual act of humble prostration before the majesty of God.” So let me read that again. “When the soul recognizes that of itself, it has only wretchedness and nothingness, and that whatever it possesses of good is a gift from God. When the soul sees that everything is given it freely, and that the only thing it has of itself is its own misery, this is what sustains it in a continual act of humble prostration before the majesty of God.” And then she says something which echoes what the Gospel says today. It says, “a humble soul does not trust itself.” So again, and our society is always telling us trust, you have to trust in yourself. And she’s saying, “a humble soul does not trust in itself, but places all its confidence in God,” places all its confidence in God. And God can permit us to struggle with temptations to help us realize our weakness, or to help us be humble. St Paul said, “to keep me from being too elated by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of satan, to harass me to keep me from being too related.” So, St Paul is saying the Lord is permitting whatever these attacks were to keep him humble. And there’s a beautiful passage in a Psalm which says, “the Lord is close to the broken hearted, those who are crushed in spirit He saves.” It’s a very strong expression, crushed in spirit and sometimes life, sometimes certain events seem to crush us, crush our spirit. But it says those who are crushed in spirit, He saves. And so that’s one of the key points, this act of humility, but of recognizing our own sinfulness. But the danger in that is that when we recognize our sinfulness, we get so discouraged that we give in to despair. And that also actually is kind of a form of pride, because we’re counting too much on ourselves and what we’re counting on ourselves to fix ourselves. And then when we sense how weak we are, after we’ve tried it over and over, then we discourage or we despair, because we’re depending too much on ourselves. So, with this humility comes the next thing, which is necessary. Humility, but also trust, trust in God’s mercy. And you notice that this tax collector, he doesn’t just say, I’m a sinner. He recognizes that’s an act of humility, but he says, “Oh, God, have mercy on me.” So, he’s turning to God with trust. His sins don’t make him think that he can’t appeal to God. On the contrary, when we become aware of our sins, He wants us just to focus on our sins so he can cause us to despair, and so we acknowledge our sins, but we focus on Jesus. And again, that can be a danger in a spiritual life, that a person becomes so intent on trying to be pure and not sinning, that all their attention is focused on, am I sinning? Am I not sinning? And so, it’s all focused on themselves. And we can’t be saved by focusing ourselves; it’s not our own efforts that will free us. Our focus has to be on Jesus. He is the only one who can save us, Jesus and His Divine Mercy. And that’s why He gave us this image of Divine Mercy, so that we were as like a real, practical visual help to remind us to look at Him. And then, to make it very clear, he gave us, even, like the instruction manual, well, it’s not really instruction manual, but He gave us the prayer to say right at the bottom, “Jesus, I trust in You.” So, to make it very clear, it’s not a complicated list of instructions. It’s to turn to Jesus and trust in Him, Jesus, I trust in You. And so again, Jesus has talked about the blessings of having that image of Divine Mercy, and that that’s a one simple way is to have that image in a prominent place, for instance, in our house, and as a reminder to look at Jesus; to recognize our sinfulness, but to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. Again, some people are so focused on their sins that they’re not focused on Jesus. So, one truth, humility helps us to recognize the truth of my own sinfulness. But there is a much greater truth, an infinitely greater truth, which is the infinite mercy of God to those who turn to Him with humility and trust. And from this gospel, there developed this famous prayer, especially, very well known in the Eastern tradition. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me a sinner.” So, it’s a recognition that I’m a sinner. But above all, it’s a call to God’s mercy, an act of trust in His mercy. She says she’s the Bride of Christ, and we also know that the Lord has given us this great sacrament of reconciliation, especially when we have mortal sins to be a path of returning to Him. And I’m sorry that it’s been so long that we’ve been able to, because of the current situation, to have this sacrament here. We’re hopeful that before too long, we will be able once again to have that sacrament here. So please keep praying for that. But just to conclude so the three, like three lessons here in this gospel that I was highlighting was, first of all, to reject the lie that I’m perfect and I don’t need help. And then the second point is to acknowledge the truth of my sins. But the third point is to acknowledge the much greater truth of the infinite mercy of God. And we know that that’s a message that He’s wanted, especially for our time. So, with these graces, the messages and revelations given through St Faustina, He wants in this time, He wants us especially focused on the greatness of His mercy, where our world is in such disarray and such a mess, and so there’s so much all of us are affected by it. We’re in a very contaminated – it’s kind of like, I don’t want to say we’re swimming in a sewer, but I mean, spiritually, it’s kind of like that, and it’s very hard to not be contaminated in that. But the Lord wants us to trust in His mercy. So, the Mass that we celebrate, this Mass that we’re celebrating right now, we know it begins with our recognizing – “I confess to Almighty God that I have greatly sinned,” And we sing “Kyrie Eleison, Lord, have mercy.” And then right before Holy Communion, once again, we will say, “Lord, I am not worthy.” So, we’re recognizing our sinfulness, but above all, we’re turning with trust in His mercy. And so, with our Blessed Mother, we can pray in our hearts during this Mass, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me a sinner.” And let’s pray that again, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me a sinner.” Amen.  

KEYWORDS / PHRASES:
Luke 18:9-14