Why the Publican's prayer was heard – and how ours can be too
The publican uttered just one sentence—but it was enough to secure the grace of God. Father Coleridge shows how this can help us pray properly too.
The publican uttered just one sentence—but it was enough to secure the grace of God. Father Coleridge shows how this can help us pray properly too.
Editor’s Notes
In this part, Fr Coleridge shows us…
How the Publican’s humble plea reveals the prayer that truly reaches God.
Why even good works can become snares if pride distorts their meaning
How Salmeron’s treatment of the Parables contains vital instructions for our own lives today.
For more context on this Gospel reading and its place in the Gospels and liturgical year, see Part I.
The Pharisee and the Publican
The Preaching of the Cross, Part III, Chap. VI
St. Luke xviii. 9–14
Story of the Gospels, § 123
Burns and Oates, London, 1889
Headings and some line breaks added.
Prayer of the Publican
‘And the publican standing afar off, would not so much as lift his eyes unto heaven, but struck his breast, saying, O God, be propitiated to me the sinner.’
It takes few words to describe the conduct and prayer of the publican, but each word is expressive. He stands afar off, as unworthy to draw nearer than was necessary to place him within the sacred precincts. He keeps his eyes fixed on the ground, as having no right to the heaven which he had forfeited, and being an unfit object for the eyes of the dwellers there.
He strikes his breast in contrition, and self-abasement, and self-chastisement, and his prayer is simply that God will accept some satisfaction for the many sins of which he feels guilty, and which give him a right to be called ‘the sinner.’
He makes no excuse, but he has confidence, for without that he would not have made his prayer, but his confidence is in the mercy of God, not in any merits of his own.
And our Lord sufficiently explains the issue of his prayer, when He says, that the publican went down to his house justified rather than the Pharisee, for it is the way of God to exalt the humble and abase the proud.
This is the one difference on which the whole parable turns. The virtues of the Pharisee may have been true in their way, but they were united with pride, and therefore he gained nothing with God by his prayer. The sins of the publican may have been many and great, but they were accompanied with self-abasement and humiliation, and therefore his prayer for pardon was heard.
And the reason lies in the character of God. All creatures are as nothing before Him, and to Him belongs the glory of all that they are and all that they do. He cannot bear the lie which is contained in self-exaltation, in the attributing to ourselves of anything good or great. That is a falsehood which appropriates to ourselves that which is His, and at the same time that it thus provokes His anger, it also shuts the door against any further mercies or gifts from Him, because those also will be made matter of a false exaltation.
So it is an invariable rule of His Providence to exalt the humble, because they give the glory to Him, and to abase the proud, because they attribute His glory to themselves.
Salmeron’s rules
The learned Salmeron, who is as devout as he is learned, subjoins to his remarks on this parable of our Lord certain rules with regard to the subject-matter of pride and humility which he recommends for general use.
In the first place, it is useful and laudable never to trust in any good works which we have done by the grace of God, first because they are not certainly good by any undoubted test, then because they are not purely good, but with many stains and imperfections, then because our justice is not stable and certain to last, and lastly, because it has not yet been judged, as St. Paul says of himself. There are some occasions on which we may manifest them, and they may add a security to our conscience in times of trial, but that is all.
His second rule is that we are always bound to give thanks to God, not only with our lips, but in our heart. But then we must consider that we have nothing good of our own, no graces, no merit, and we are not to put forward what we have received, we are to beg pardon for our hidden sins, we are never to put ourselves before another either in thought or word, and we are to beg of God to preserve what He has given us, as we ourselves are like the prodigal son, and predisposed to waste all our substance.
The third rule is never to judge another as a hopeless sinner, nor prefer ourselves to him, which is to usurp the judgment of God. No one is a good judge in his own cause, and our self-love makes us judge our own faults to be light and those of others to be heavy, while the envy and aversion with which we regard them makes our own faults very great. No sin that one man has committed is impossible to another.
The fourth rule regards the actions of our neighbour. When he has done what is certainly good, we are to think them better, and when he has done what is bad, we are to think it less. We are to hold his doubtful good deeds as certain, and his doubtful evil deeds as not at all such. We are to think just the contrary concerning ourselves. Our certain good deeds are to be held as less good, our certain evil deeds as greater, our doubtful evil deeds as certain, our doubtful good deeds as not good at all.
The fifth rule is that no one must consider himself great in God’s sight because of his good works, because that again belongs to the judgment of God. A good conscience is a great boon, but there may be things which escape our conscience, and thus every one may hold himself a sinner. There may be many sins of omission, and, in order that we may hunger and thirst after justice, God wills that we should thus esteem ourselves.
The sixth rule is that with regard to our cooperation with God, He wills that we should do all things as if the whole depended on ourselves, and should also acknowledge that we can do nothing at all without His grace.
Lastly, he says that people who sometimes praise themselves and speak of their own virtues are not to be set down at once as worthy of reproach or condemnation. For there are some who may do this, acknowledging all the time that the whole merit is from God, in order to praise Him, or for the salvation of their neighbour, or to raise up the hope of others in God, and they do this with great gratitude and profound humility, and, as St. Gregory says, ‘Those things are not proud in the ears of God which are uttered with a humble heart.’
It is easy to test by these rules the language of the Pharisee in the parable.
The Publican as a teacher of prayer
It is easy also to learn a lesson from this blessed publican, whom we delight to think of as a real person, who is among those mentioned in the Gospels who has taught us a precious lesson as to prayer in the few words he has uttered.
He takes his place by the side of the centurion, who said, ‘Lord, I am not worthy,’ or the leper, who said, ‘Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst heal me,’ or the Syrophoenician mother, who said, ‘Yes, Lord, but the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from the master’s table.’
There are times when we can hardly find words to express our thoughts and feelings in prayer. At such times, and not at such times only, what better can we do than put ourselves in the position of the publican, and simply beat our breasts and say, ‘God, be propitiated to me the sinner?’
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The Pharisee and the Publican
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Humility is the fundamental intellectual/spiritual virtue, and chastity is the fundamental physical virtue. Failure to repent of sins against chastity leads more souls to hell than any other, as Our Lady of Fatima revealed to Jacinta Marto in 1919. And humility is needed to repent of them.
'It is rare to find a heretic who loves chastity." - St Jerome