For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted. - Luke 18:14


The Gospel reading for today is about a Pharisee and a tax collector. Jesus describes the Pharisee as a good person. He follows the ten commandments of God. However, God was not happy with him because of the way he treated other people.  He is only concerned with his own desires, needs and interests where he does not care about others.  He was religious but the way he carry out his religious attitude was because he loved himself and not God or anyone else.  

The tax collectors in the Gospel were considered as the sinners where they collected money from the community and have a share of it.  However, God accepted and loved one of the tax collectors because of his honesty, courage and humility to confess his sins to God. The tax collector asked God for his forgiveness for all the bad things he had done.

The Gospel reminds us that even if we have done a lot of bad things to other people or even to ourselves, God is always there listening and will always forgive us as long as we are truly asking for his forgiveness and we repent. We may be the most religious person in our community but then we don’t know how to ask for forgiveness from the Lord. It is still useless and God would not be pleased. One of our greatest gifts from the Lord is to know our sinfulness.  And the divine gifts of God to his chosen ones are forgiveness and justification.
                                                                           
-Edward de Castro

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