PHARISEES AND TAX COLLECTORS IN US!
Saturday of the Third Week of Lent
My dear encountered couples:
“Everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled while he who humbles himself shall be exalted.” —Luke 18:14
Humility is knowing who we are with all our strengths and weaknesses, holiness and sinfulness. It is also accepting what one sees. We often find it helpful to remember that God is the One Who created us. God is the One Who saw our childhood and the influences that would shape our characters and personalities.
God knows those things that we have achieved as well as where our failures lie. Still, God loves us.
We do not have to fake it with God. We can come into God's presence just as we are, acknowledging all. It is when we are at our weakest that we can stretch out our hands in faith, asking for God's grace and power to move within us.
We have both Pharisees and Tax Collectors in us, and at times we play each role to the hilt.
Today, the re-reading of this passage encourages us to take another look at our tendency to forget who we know we are. This sacred time of Lent is ripe for any change we may need to work on. With God's grace, we will grow in self-knowledge, self-acceptance and realize that all is Gift.
John tells us Jesus humbled himself. This is the time we focus most fervently upon the humility of Christ. Through the graces bestowed through his suffering, death and resurrection, may we grow in this most important virtue too. To pray for it, is to already receive it. Thanks be to God!
