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.
The tax collector stands at a distance, hands shaking against his chest, and breathes a single line: “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.” That is not groveling; it is truth-telling. It is the heart learning to speak plainly before God. Humility is not self-loathing. Humility is accuracy. When we forget this, prayer becomes theater; when we remember it, prayer becomes home.
A story from our own era makes the point. When Mother Teresa died, the Church began the long, careful process of evaluating her life before declaring her a saint. Part of that process invites a critic—a “devil’s advocate”—to press hard questions. For some candidates, skeptics appear in droves. For her, almost no one came forward. One well-known writer did, and his claim startled many: she had not done enough to relieve suffering.
Think of the irony: a woman who spent her life in alleys and hospices, whose hands learned the weight of human frailty, faulted for not doing enough. But if she had been in the room, I suspect she would have nodded “yes”. She knew that the world’s sorrow is bigger than our reach. She knew her heart too—its limits, its shadows, its needs. She would have struck her breast and whispered the tax collector’s line. That is the secret of her holiness. Not achievements tallied or headlines collected, but the steady confession that every good thing is gift, and the giver is God.
This is the invitation of Jesus’ parable: not to despise the proud man, but to join the honest man. To admit that our charity, while real, is small next to the ocean of mercy poured over us. To bring to the Lord not a report, but a soul. The Church even teaches our bodies this prayer. At the Confiteor we strike our breast—not to shame ourselves, but to wake the heart, to knock where Christ already waits.
So how does this truth-telling move from the pew into daily life? End the day with a brief examen: Where did I love well? Where did I turn inward? Name one concrete sin without excuse. Then receive forgiveness—go to confession—and ask for one simple grace for tomorrow. Finally, give the heart a simple prayer to carry around: a line you can breathe at the sink, in traffic, at your desk—mercy for a sinner loved by God.
The Pharisee makes faith a mirror; the tax collector opens a window. One stares at himself; the other looks toward God. Only one goes home right with the Lord, and he carries no trophy—just a sentence of truth that every heart should be willing to speak.