Reading of the holy gospel according to Luke 18, 9-14
Dear Parishioners,I grew up in St. Laurence parish on the South Side of Chicago. It was a very beautiful and enriching experience in many ways. But like anything else human, it suffered from the blindness revealed in today’s Gospel. Over the years, I have found myself growing in awareness of the many prejudices and ignorance that were implanted in me by my early Irish Catholic formation.
First of all, we had a wide open highway to hell for others. Protestants and fallen away Catholics, especially the divorced, led the parade. The role of women was very clear: in the kitchen and preferably pregnant. The “colored people”, the operative term of respect for African Americans in my youth, were inferior and happy to stay on the other side of 47th St. where God put them. As Catholics we were very patriotic and in full support of the insanity of nuclear escalation.
We were proud to be Catholics leading the way in the censorship of movies to maintain pelvic orthodoxy. I think my Communion line would not have made it past the censors. We never gave a thought to Hollywood’s glorification of booze, smoking and violence. Mexicans were the only Hispanics I knew and this only thru movies. They were always total losers only topped by the savagery of Native Americans who attacked the white settlers.
I could go on at length about clerical dominance but the point is clear. Organized religion, no matter how beautiful and profound, is never too far removed from the Pharisee in today’s Gospel.
I do not think often enough about what the next generation will see in our parish and today’s Church that is so completely off the radar of Gospel values. I am sure that there is a lot to consider even if it is hidden from our awareness at this time.
There are two powerful points in today’s parable. It continues Luke’s often reaped theme of reversal. In God’s coming revealed in Jesus, things will be put in the order of what God really is, not as that part of us similar to what the Pharisee likes to see a world with ourselves as the center of reality.
Secondly, the Pharisee exposes the tendency of the human heart that we all share to be an idol making machine. The Publican exposes the true reality of the goodness and mercy of God and our role as broken but loved and forgiven sinners.
To have the openness and integrity of the tax collector is quite a spiritual feat. St. Teresa of Avila teaches us of the utter importance of this self-knowledge. She practiced it so well that she could say at the end, her life story is all a story of God’s mercy.
The most fundamental truth of today’s parable is that every human heart is torn between the pull of the Pharisee’s arrogance and the tax collector’s humility and self knowledge. The power of the message is that the God of mercy revealed by Jesus forgives sinners. All we need to do is recognize we need to get in line for this liberating gift!
In Christ,
Fr. Tracy
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