In Gospel according to St. Luke Jesus teaches us about prayer. First we learn to pray with Jesus to the Father in what we called “Lord’s Prayer”. We learn that we must remember to give thanks and praise to God, and that we must persevere in our petitions to God. God favors prayer which is humble. Such is the lesson within the parable of the 2 men who went up to the temple to pray. God wasn’t pleased with the prayer of the proud Pharisee. Actually it was no prayer but only a list of self-congratulations. But God was pleased with the humble tax collector. His was a sincere prayer of mercy. Jesus took delight in making the least likely candidate for imitation the hero of His stories. Everybody despised tax collectors, the ancient version of IRS, but this man acknowledged his sins and begged God for mercy.
The tax collector made the right choice. He went to the right person for the repairs he needed. He made no excuses. He diagnosed his own problem and asked God for the grace he needed in his simple prayer, “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
The tax collector’s prayer was one of to God. Authentic petitions, a plea for help, the type of prayer we often offer to God. We asked God favors because we know He is the right person to turn to, that He has the power to help us. That is half of humility: to acknowledge God’s power which is greater than any power in the universe. The second half of humility is to admit that we need God, that we cannot go it alone, that we depend on God’s love as well as on His power. Humble prayer expresses God’s power and our need. Our humble prayer goes right to heaven because the prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds and does not rest until reaches its goal.