3rd Week of Lent

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Monday, 21 March 2022 : 3rd Week of Lent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Luke 4 : 24-30

At that time, Jesus said to the people of Nazareth, “No prophet is honoured in his own country. Truly, I say to you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens withheld rain for three years and six months and a great famine came over the whole land. Yet, Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow of Zarephath, in the country of Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha, the prophet; and no one was healed except Naaman, the Syrian.”

On hearing these words, the whole assembly became indignant. They rose up and brought Him out of the town, to the edge of the hill on which Nazareth is built, intending to throw Him down the cliff. But He passed through their midst and went His way.

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Monday, 21 March 2022 : 3rd Week of Lent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 41 : 2, 3 and Psalm 42 : 3, 4

As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for You, o God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I go and see the face of God?

Send forth Your light and Your truth; let them be my guide, let them take me to Your holy mountain, to the place where You reside.

Then will I go to the altar of God, to God, my gladness and delight. I will praise You with the lyre and harp, o God, my God.

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Monday, 21 March 2022 : 3rd Week of Lent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

2 Kings 5 : 1-15a

Naaman was the army commander of the king of Aram. This man was highly regarded and enjoyed the king’s favour, for YHVH had helped him lead the army of the Arameans to victory. But this valiant man was sick with leprosy.

One day some Aramean soldiers raided the land of Israel and took a young girl captive who became a servant to the wife of Naaman. She said to her mistress, “If my master would only present himself to the prophet in Samaria, he would surely cure him of his leprosy.”

Naaman went to tell the king what the young Israelite maidservant had said. The king of Aram said to him, “Go to the prophet, and I shall also send a letter to the king of Israel.” So Naaman went and took with him ten silver talents, six thousand gold pieces and ten festal garments.

On his arrival, he delivered the letter to the king of Israel. It said, “I present my servant Naaman to you that you may heal him of his leprosy. When the king read the letter, he tore his clothes to show his indignation, “I am not God to give life or death. And the king of Aram sends me this man to be healed! You see, he is just looking for an excuse for war.”

Elisha, the man of God, came to know that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, so he sent this message to him : “Why have you torn your clothes? Let the man come to me, that he may know that there is a prophet in Israel.” So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and stopped before the house of Elisha. Elisha then sent a messenger to tell him, “Go to the river Jordan and wash seven times, and your flesh shall be as it was before, and you shall be cleansed.”

Naaman was angry, so he went away. He thought, “On my arrival, he should have personally come out, and then paused and called on the Name of YHVH, his God. And he should have touched with his hand the infected part, and I would have been healed. Are the rivers of Damascus, Abana and Pharpar not better than all the rivers of the land of Israel? Could I not wash there to be healed?”

His servants approached him and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had ordered you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? But how much easier when he said : ‘Take a bath and you will be cleansed.’” So Naaman went down to the Jordan where he washed himself seven times as Elisha had ordered. His skin became soft like that of a child and he was cleansed.

Then Naaman returned to the man of God with all his men.

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Sunday, 20 March 2022 : Third Sunday of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday we are all reminded of the call that the Lord had made to all of us, His beloved ones, to follow Him and to dedicate ourselves to Him. All of us have been called to leave behind our past lives and our state of sin, and enter into a new existence with God through grace, and by His ever generous love, mercy and forgiveness. Each and every one of us are God’s chosen people, His beloved children, whom He had called from this world to be with Him. Our Scripture passages this Sunday remind us of this reality and truth, and we are reminded to turn towards the Lord with renewed love, zeal and vigour.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of Exodus the account of the calling of Moses at Mount Horeb, the mountain of God, during the time when Moses was in the land of the Midianites while in exile from Egypt. At that time, Moses, who had been raised by the Pharaoh’s sister as her own son after having been rescued from the River Nile, had been accused of misconduct and treason for having killed an Egyptian that persecuted an Israelite slave worker. Moses then fled away from Egypt to avoid being punished and killed although what he did was truly right and just.

In the land of the Midianites, Moses had become a shepherd and was eventually married to the daughter of his benefactor, Jethro the Midianite. And then, as we heard in our first reading today, Moses witnessed a great vision from God at Mount Horeb, as he saw a great burning bush, which an Angel of God set fire on and Moses went up the mountain to see the marvellous sight when God spoke to him, calling on him to go back to the land of Egypt and be the bearer of God’s words to the Egyptians and their Pharaoh, proclaiming the liberation of the Israelites who had long been enslaved by the former.

Through what we heard in our first reading today, we are all presented with the enduring love and compassion that God has for His people, as He told Moses of what He would do for His beloved people, as He has always remembered the Covenant He made with their forefathers, and He would bring them out from the place of their sufferings and agony, into the new place He would lead them towards, a land flowing with milk and honey, the Promised Land of Canaan that He has promised Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the forefathers of the Israelites.

In our second reading today, taken from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Church and the faithful in the city of Corinth, we heard of the accounts of St. Paul reminding the faithful of all that God had done for the people of Israel during the time of their Exodus from Egypt. He reminded all of them how God had provided for the Israelites during the time of their long sojourn in the desert, as they journeyed from place to place, God always going before them and leading them to where they were brought to go to. And despite the rebelliousness and disobedience that they had shown at the time, that led them to endure forty years of suffering and atonement, God still cared for them all daily.

The Lord has always showed His love and mercy, which He has patiently and generously offered to His people despite their constant rebelliousness, their lack of faith in Him, the betrayal and all the other wicked deeds that they had committed. He could have annihilated us all the moment that our first ancestors fell into sin, and He could have destroyed us there and then. Yet, He gave us all a chance, because He believed in us and He loved us, which was why He created us all in the first place. He would not have created us if He did not love us. He showed us that while we may have frequently been unfaithful to Him, but He never ceased to be faithful to the promises that He had made to us since the very beginning.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard of the Lord speaking to the people regarding of what had then happened regarding a group of Galileans who were massacred by the Romans under the governor, Pontius Pilate and also of another accident involving a group of people in the town of Shiloh who had perished due to that accident. He told all those assembled that those who perished were sinners just as they who listened to the Lord were sinners too. However, He pointed out how unless they repented, then they would perish as well in the end.

What the Lord wanted to point out through this particular encounter was that we are all mortals and we will eventually reach the end of our worldly life and existence. All of us will face death sooner or later, and this is one certainty that will happen to us. Due to sin we have to face the consequences and that is we have to experience death. Yet, at the same time, the most uncertain thing in life for us is the exact time and moment of our death and passing from this world. No one knew, knows and will ever know the exact time and moment of their death, and yet, all will die and go through the gates of death.

However, the Lord has also provided us His mercy and compassionate love, and through His Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, He has given us the sure path out of the darkness and the tyranny of sin. He took upon Himself the burden of our sins, and He did the most marvellous thing in reaching out to us with love and compassion, that through Him we may receive the assurance of eternal life and true happiness, by His most loving and selfless sacrifice on the Cross for our sake. We are reminded again and again that all of us are really very fortunate to have been beloved so much by the Lord, and we must not take it for granted that we have been given this grace and the many opportunities presented to us, as God has always been ever patient in calling on us to return to Him.

However, we must also remember that in the end, sin is a corruption of our mind, body, heart and soul, and no sin can remain in us unforgiven and not repented upon. For God Who is perfect and all good and great cannot have sin existent before Him, or else, those sins would have brought us down to our doom and annihilation. Essentially, while God has always ever been merciful and loving towards us, but there is a limit and boundary that we must always be aware of, and that is, as long as we still reject God’s mercy and forgiveness, freely and generously given to us, then our sins shall remain and we shall be judged and condemned by those same sins.

This Lent, all of us are called and reminded of God’s ever generous love and how each and every one of us have a share in this love and generous mercy. Unfortunately, it is very often that our pride and ego, our human desires and inability to resist the temptations of the world have led to us faltering again and again, delaying our return towards the Lord, hardening our hearts against Him and closing off the doors of His mercy when He has extended it so openly and freely towards us. It is often us who have spurned His advances of love and mercy, all the generous kindness that He has presented to us.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we reflect on these words from the Sacred Scriptures this Sunday, already the Third one in the season of Lent, are we all still idling by in our lives and not heeding God’s calling, His constant invitations and pleas for us to return to Him with contrite and repentant hearts? Are we still going to allow our pride, ego, our sinfulness and our refusal to listen to the Lord’s words be serious obstacles in the way of our reconciliation with Him? Are we going to continue to rebel against the Lord just as how the people of Israel in the past have always often disobeyed Him, doubted and even betrayed Him for other gods and idols?

That is why we have to make good use of the opportunities we have been given most generously this Lent to reconnect ourselves with God, and to rediscover the unity which we once had with Him, but which had been ruined and broken due to our sins. That is why this Lent all of us are called to deepen our relationship with God, remove from our hearts and minds the temptation of pride and ego, and of all negativities and the various obstacles that have often prevented us from returning to God with faith. This Lent, all of us should do our best to reach out to one another, and to help each other in our journey back towards the Lord.

Let us all strive therefore to renew the relationship we have with God and endeavour to overcome the temptations and pressures of the world that are always pulling us away from God and His path. Let us put our focus on God and His love for each and every one of us, and remember to be grateful and thankful for everything that He had done for us. May He continue to watch over us and bless us in our Lenten journey and observances. May He remain with us always and strengthen us with faith, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 20 March 2022 : Third Sunday of Lent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Luke 13 : 1-9

At that time, one day, some people told Jesus what had occurred in the Temple : Pilate had had Galileans killed, and their blood mingled with the blood of their sacrifices. Jesus asked them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered this? No, I tell you. But unless you change your ways, you will all perish, as they did.”

“And those eighteen persons in Siloah, who were crushed when the tower fell, do you think they were more guilty than all the others in Jerusalem? I tell you : no. But unless you change your ways, you will perish as they did.” And Jesus continued, “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it, but found none. Then he said to the gardener, ‘Look here, for three years now I have been looking for figs on this tree, and I have found none. Cut it down, why should it continue to deplete the soil?’”

“The gardener replied, ‘Leave it one more year, so that I may dig around it and add some fertiliser; perhaps it will bear fruit from now on. But if it does not, you can cut it down.’”

Alternative reading (Readings from Year A)

John 4 : 5-42

At that time, Jesus came to a Samaritan town called Sychar, near the land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well is there. Tired from His journey, Jesus sat down by the well; it was about noon. Now a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” His disciples had just gone into town to buy some food.

The Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that You, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan and a woman, for a drink?” (For Jews, in fact, have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift of God! If you knew Who it is, Who is asking you for a drink, you yourself would have asked Me, and I would have given you living water.”

The woman answered, “Sir, You have no bucket, and this well is deep; where is Your living water? Are You greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well, and drank from it himself, together with his sons and his cattle?” Jesus said to her, “Those who drink of this water will be thirsty again; but those, who drink of the water that I shall give, will never be thirsty; for the water, that I shall give, will become in them a spring of water, welling up to eternal life.”

The woman said to Him, “Give me this water, that I may never be thirsty, and never have to come here to draw water.” Jesus said, “Go, call your husband, and come back here.” The woman answered, “I have no husband.” And Jesus replied, “You are right to say, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you said is true.”

The woman then said to Him, “I see You are a Prophet; tell me this : Our ancestors came to this mountain to worship God; but you Jews, do you not claim that Jerusalem is the only place to worship God?” Jesus said to her, “Believe Me, woman, the hour is coming when you shall worship the Father, but that will not be on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.”

“You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, because salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is even now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for that is the kind of worshippers the Father wants. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit, and truth.”

The woman said to Him, “I know that the Messiah (that is the Christ) is coming. When He comes, He will tell us everything.” And Jesus said, “I Who am talking to you, I am He.”

At this point the disciples returned, and were surprised that Jesus was speaking with a woman, however, no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are You talking with her?” So the woman left her water jar and ran to the town. There she said to the people, “Come and see a Man Who told me everything I did! Could He not be the Christ?” So they left the town and went to meet Him.

In the meantime the disciples urged Jesus, “Master, eat.” But He said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” And the disciples wondered, “Has anyone brought Him food?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of the One Who sent Me, and to carry out His work.”

“You say that in four months there will be the harvest; now, I say to you, look up and see the fields white and ready for harvesting. People who reap the harvest are paid for their work, and the fruit is gathered for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. Indeed the saying holds true : One sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap where you did not work or suffer; others have worked, and you are now sharing in their labours.”

In that town many Samaritans believed in Him when they heard the woman who declared, “He told me everything I did.” So, when they came to Him, they asked Him to stay with them, and Jesus stayed there two days. After that, many more believed because of His own words, and they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you told us: we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is the Saviour of the world.”

Alternative reading (shorter version of the Reading from Year A)

John 4 : 5-15, 19b-26, 39a, 40-42

At that time, Jesus came to a Samaritan town called Sychar, near the land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well is there. Tired from His journey, Jesus sat down by the well; it was about noon. Now a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” His disciples had just gone into town to buy some food.

The Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that You, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan and a woman, for a drink?” (For Jews, in fact, have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift of God! If you knew Who it is, Who is asking you for a drink, you yourself would have asked Me, and I would have given you living water.”

The woman answered, “Sir, You have no bucket, and this well is deep; where is Your living water? Are You greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well, and drank from it himself, together with his sons and his cattle?” Jesus said to her, “Those who drink of this water will be thirsty again; but those, who drink of the water that I shall give, will never be thirsty; for the water, that I shall give, will become in them a spring of water, welling up to eternal life.”

The woman said to Him, “Give me this water, that I may never be thirsty, and never have to come here to draw water. I see You are a Prophet; tell me this : Our ancestors came to this mountain to worship God; but you Jews, do you not claim that Jerusalem is the only place to worship God?” Jesus said to her, “Believe Me, woman, the hour is coming when you shall worship the Father, but that will not be on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.”

“You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, because salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is even now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for that is the kind of worshippers the Father wants. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit, and truth.”

The woman said to Him, “I know that the Messiah (that is the Christ) is coming. When He comes, He will tell us everything.” And Jesus said, “I Who am talking to you, I am He.”

In that town many Samaritans believed in Him, so, when they came to Him, they asked Him to stay with them, and Jesus stayed there two days. After that, many more believed because of His own words, and they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you told us: we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is the Saviour of the world.”

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Sunday, 20 March 2022 : Third Sunday of Lent (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

1 Corinthians 10 : 1-6, 10-12

Let me remind you, brothers and sisters, about our ancestors. All of them were under the cloud and all crossed the sea. All underwent the baptism of the land and of the sea to join Moses; and all of them ate from the same spiritual manna; and all of them drank from the same spiritual drink. For you know, that they drank from a spiritual rock following them, and the rock was Christ. However, most of them did not please God, and the desert was strewn with their bodies.

All of this happened as an example for us, so that we might not become people of evil desires, as they did, nor grumble, as some of them did, and were cut down by the destroying Angel. These things happened to them, as an example, and they were written as a warning, for us, as the last times come upon us.

Therefore, if you think you stand, beware, lest you fall.

Alternative reading (Readings from Year A)

Romans 5 : 1-2, 5-8

By faith we have received true righteousness, and we are at peace with God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Through Him we obtain this favour in which we remain and we even boast to expect the Glory of God.

And hope does not disappoint us because the Holy Spirit has been given to us, pouring into our hearts the love of God. Consider, moreover, the time that Christ died for us : when we were still helpless and unable to do anything.

Few would accept to die for an upright person; although, for a very good person, perhaps someone would dare to die. But see how God manifested His love for us : while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

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Sunday, 20 March 2022 : Third Sunday of Lent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 102 : 1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 8 and 11

Praise YHVH, my soul; all my being, praise His holy Name! Praise YHVH, my soul, and do not forget all His kindness.

He forgives all your sins and heals all your sickness; He redeems your life from destruction and crowns you with love and compassion.

YHVH restores justice and secures the rights of the oppressed. He has made known His ways to Moses; and His deeds, to the people of Israel.

YHVH is gracious and merciful, abounding in love and slow to anger. As the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His love for those fearing Him.

Alternative Psalm (Psalm from Year A)

Psalm 94 : 1-2, 6-7, 8-9

Come, let us sing to the Lord, let us make a joyful sound to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before Him giving thanks, with music and songs of praise.

Come and worship; let us bow down, kneel before the Lord, our Maker. He is our God, and we His people; the flock He leads and pastures. Would that today you heard His voice!

Do not be stubborn, as at Meribah, in the desert, on that day at Massah, when your ancestors challenged Me, and they put Me to the test.

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Sunday, 20 March 2022 : Third Sunday of Lent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Exodus 3 : 1-8a, 13-15

Moses pastured the sheep of Jethro, his father-in-law, priest of Midian. One day he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the Mountain of God. The Angel of YHVH appeared to him by means of a flame of fire in the middle of a bush. Moses saw that although the bush was on fire it did not burn up.

Moses thought, “I will go and see this amazing sight, why is the bush not burning up?” YHVH saw that Moses was drawing near to look, and God called to him from the middle of the bush, “Moses! Moses!” He replied, “Here I am.” YHVH said to him, “Do not come near; take off your sandals because the place where you are standing is holy ground.” And God continued, “I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.”

Moses hid his face lest his eyes look on God. YHVH said, “I have seen the humiliation of My people in Egypt and I hear their cry when they are cruelly treated by their taskmasters. I know their suffering. I have come down to free them from the power of the Egyptians and to bring them up from that land to a beautiful spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

Moses answered God, “If I go to the Israelites and say to them : ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ they will ask me : ‘What is His Name?’ What shall I answer them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO AM. This is what you will say to the sons of Israel : ‘I AM sent me to you.’”

God then said to Moses, “You will say to the Israelites : ‘YHVH, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, has sent me.’ That will be My Name forever, and by this Name they shall call upon Me for all generations to come.”

Alternative reading (Readings from Year A)

Exodus 17 : 3-7

But the people thirsted for water at Rephidim and grumbled against Moses, “Why did you make us leave Egypt to have us die of thirst with our children and our cattle?”

So Moses cried to YHVH, “What shall I do with the people? They are almost ready to stone me!” YHVH said to Moses, “Go ahead of the people and take with you the elders of Israel. Take with you the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will stand there before you on the rock at Horeb. You will strike the rock and water will flow from it and the people will drink.”

Moses did this in the presence of the elders of Israel. The place was called Massah and Meribah because of the complaints of the Israelites, who tested YHVH saying, “Is YHVH with us or not?”

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Saturday, 30 March 2019 : 3rd Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Scripture passages in which we heard about the pride of the Pharisee and the humility of the tax collector, in a parable that the Lord Jesus told to the people and His disciples. Using that parable, the Lord wanted to show just how great God’s mercy and love for each and every one of us is, that no one is truly excluded or prevented from receiving His merciful love.

The Lord mentioned a tax collector and a Pharisee because of the prejudices and perceptions that each one of them experienced at that time. The tax collectors were often treated with disdain and contempt, with distrust and suspicion due to the nature of their work in collecting the taxes for the Roman governor and administration, while the Pharisees were treated with reverence and adulation because of their respected position in the community.

Therefore, there was then a strong bias against the tax collectors, who were collectively treated as rebels, traitors and unworthy of being members of the community of the people of God. The tax collectors were shunned and treated as if they were great sinners who were incapable of receiving God’s mercy and unworthy of God’s love. This is such while the Pharisees were seen as holy and pious group of people, who always made public their prayers and devotions before everyone.

Through the parable He mentioned, the Lord Jesus wanted to break this prejudice and bias, which the people have had in their hearts and minds. He wanted to show them that even a tax collector in truth was aware of the sins and whatever wicked things he had done, and having been treated so badly by the community in general, it was quite certain that they must have felt very bad about their own actions.

But the tax collector in the parable, knowing and understanding about his own shortcomings, humbled himself before God and begged Him to show mercy and compassion, admitting his sins before Him, unlike the Pharisee who did not just brag about his own achievements and supposed piety, but also looked down and ridiculed the tax collector before God, thinking of himself as being more worthy than the tax collector.

In the eyes of God, a repentant sinner is far more worthy than a proud person who may outwardly be pious and good, but in truth, is still a sinner in heart. In fact, pride is the number one reason why many of us have continued to live in sin, firstly because we refused to admit that we have been wrong in our way of life, and secondly, we have that false sense of security and even superiority, in thinking that we are better off than others who seem to be deeper in sin than us.

Pride is a great obstacle in our path and journey towards God’s grace and loving mercy, for pride keeps us hardhearted and stubborn, unwilling to seek healing for the sins and wicked things we have committed all the while. And it also often gives us the reason and excuse to say no to God’s offer of mercy and forgiveness. But at what cost, brothers and sisters in Christ? Nothing less than the salvation of our souls!

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we are all called to reflect on our own lives, on our every actions, words and deeds. And surely we will become more aware of how sinful or broken we have been in life. But are we going to allow our sins and our brokenness to continue to affect us through life? Or are we going to seek God’s forgiveness and mercy, He Who alone is capable of healing us from our sins?

Let us all therefore pray for the grace to be humble like the tax collector in the parable that Jesus said to the people. Let us pray for the grace to be aware of how sinful we have been, and how broken our lives have become, and ultimately for the grace and courage to seek healing through forgiveness that comes generously from God alone. May the Lord continue to guide us through our journey in this season of Lent and beyond. Amen.

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Saturday, 30 March 2019 : 3rd Week of Lent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Luke 18 : 9-14

At that time, Jesus told another parable to some people, fully convinced of their own righteousness, who looked down on others : “Two men went up to the Temple to pray; one was a Pharisee, and the other a tax collector.”

“The Pharisee stood by himself, and said, ‘I thank You, God, that I am not like other people, grasping, crooked, adulterous, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and give a tenth of all my income to the Temple.’ In the meantime 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.’”

“I tell you, when this man went back to his house, he had been reconciled with God, but not the other. For whoever makes himself out to be great will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be raised up.”