Homilies & Thoughts

There is a certain comedy to the Pharisee’s prayer. He speaks as if heaven should applaud his résumé, as if the problem with the world is everyone else. We know that swagger. We have seen it, maybe even felt it tug at us. Yet Jesus does not waste time telling us simply not to be that person; he turns our gaze to the other figure in the doorway—the man who cannot raise his eyes.

At the city gate, the dust never settles. Merchants haggle, travelers shout, carts rattle by. Here the courts meet in the open: respected elders and judges sit from morning to evening, hearing disputes where anyone may step forward. A widow has no husband to represent her; she must speak for herself before neighbors and strangers alike. There—at the busiest spot in town—a widow appears again. She stands where everyone can see. She is not proud. She is not powerful. She simply returns, day after day, to plead for justice.

Mercy always costs somebody something. Sometimes it costs time. Sometimes pride. Sometimes the ache of being taken for granted. The ten lepers cry out, and the plea is familiar to our lips at the start of every mass, in a slightly different translation: Lord, have mercy. Their illness has pushed them to the edges—forced to live apart, forced to warn others away. They are not simply unwell; they are unwelcome.