Br. Jean-Thomas de Beauregard op, who has just published “The Spirituality of the log – The art of setting fire to the earth” (Cerf), comments on the Gospel of the 30th ordinary Sunday (Lk 18, 9 -14). Between the pious and generous Pharisee and the tax collector ashamed of his sin, Jesus prefers the prayer of those who need God.
In Bizet’s opera Carmen, and the famous air of Bohemian child love, Carmen sings: “One speaks, the other is silent; and it’s the other one I prefer, he didn’t say anything, but I like him. Carmen doesn’t have the same tastes as the good Lord. For in the parable of the Pharisee and the publican, it is the Pharisee who is silent, and it is the publican who speaks. And yet, in the end, it was the publican who had become righteous, and therefore loved by God, rather than the Pharisee. To be precise, the Gospel describes a Pharisee who prays within himself, while the publican speaks his words to God. One is silent, the other speaks, and it is he who speaks who pleases God.
Trip around my navel
The Pharisee is a good man. It ticks all the boxes. He fasts twice a week when fasting was only required once a year. Who among us can say the same? He gives the tenth of everything he earns, to the poor or to the Temple. Who among us gives 10% of his income to works or to the Church? Many Christians would benefit from imitating this Pharisee! And for good measure, there is nothing to infer that this Pharisee is hypocritical, his approach is most likely sincere. Yes, but here it is, the Pharisee prays within himself. In the mirror that he holds up to himself, the Pharisee adores his own perfection. The movement of his soul is curved on itself, like a snake… And it’s terrible because he looks a lot like us. Apart from perhaps a few nuns in their monastery, and still probably not all the time, who can say that his prayer is not that of the Pharisee? Most often, our prayer is in fact an introspection, where God acts as an observer, a witness, even a guilt-ridden superego for the most neurotic among us. Travel around my navel! It’s less expensive than psychoanalysis and it fulfills more or less the same function… We are far from heart-to-heart with the living God mentioned by Teresa of Avila!
The Pharisee prays within himself, he does not really address God. However, he seems to be addressing God, since he gives thanks for the good works that God gives him to accomplish. That’s wonderful ! If he truly attributes all his merit to the work of God in him, rather than to his own strength, why is this prayer wrong? It wouldn’t be bad if all of us here had the reflex to give thanks to God for all the good things we do.
The demon of comparison
But it is not certain that the thanksgiving of the Pharisee is so beautiful. There is even a downright inversion of the relationship between God and man: God becomes debtor of the Pharisee! The Pharisee feels that he deserves by himself, that he has a right to this, a title to that. He inserts his credit card into the divine terminal, confident in his bank account filled with good deeds. He is waiting for God, the cashier of Heaven, to give him back what he has bought, and with a smile on top of that if possible. The Pharisee’s thanksgiving is therefore not so pure. Above all, the Pharisee thanks God for the good he has done, but it is immediately to compare himself. In this case, it’s him against the rest of the world. For the Pharisee does not say, “I give you thanks because I am not like too many men who, etc. », or « I give you thanks because I am not like such a man who, etc. “. It would already be the demon of comparison, which eats away at spiritual life, but it would still be understandable. No, the Pharisee said, “I give you thanks because I am not like other men” (Lk 18, 11). The Pharisee considers himself different, and superior, not to this or that, or even to a majority, but to men in general, to all men!
The demon of comparison is formidable because it is evil regardless of the meaning of the comparison.
Whether I believe myself to be superior to everyone or inferior to everyone, whether I love myself too much or hate myself, in any case I pay too much attention to myself.
The demon of comparison is formidable because it is evil regardless of the meaning of the comparison. Whether I believe myself to be superior to everyone or inferior to everyone, whether I love myself too much or hate myself, in any case I pay too much attention to myself. There is a way of belittling oneself under the pretext of Christian humility which hides a great deal of pride, even when it remains completely interior.
Beware of misunderstanding!
The prayer of this Pharisee is therefore a navel-gazing introspection, and when he thanks God, it is to better highlight his own perfection and despise all other men. All the elements of a self-centered spirituality come together. But there is an additional element that Saint Augustine notices: it is that the Pharisee asks nothing of God. This is perhaps what is the most serious and the saddest. A Pharisee dwells in my heart when I ask nothing of God.
Here, we must stop for a moment. Modern spirituality, marked among others by the great saints of Carmel, has raised prayer to the summit of Christian prayer. And it is very true that this silent and loving conversation with the good God, where the soul allows itself to be invaded by the Lord in passivity, letting him transform it, is an eminent and excellent form of prayer. But beware of misunderstanding! The excellence of prayer does not depend, contrary to what is sometimes believed, on the fact that it is disinterested. Besides, prayer, true prayer, is not disinterested. Because true love expects something from the other, and that’s good! Prayer is no better because you don’t ask God for anything in particular. To not ask God for anything specific, concrete, isn’t that, on the contrary, to lack confidence in God? Isn’t this considering, basically, that God cannot transfigure my misery into joy?
The asking prayer is beautiful
The prayer of petition is beautiful because it is the prayer of faith: the one who asks believes that God exists and that he is provident. The prayer of petition is beautiful because it is the prayer of hope: the one who asks knows that God wants to give him everything that can make him a saint. The prayer of request can even be the prayer of charity when asking for someone else. When my prayer becomes navel-gazing, a good way out is to pray for someone else. It’s often easier than coming back to the good God directly: the shortest way to God goes through the next one. By asking the Lord for something, I recognize that I can do nothing without him, I place myself in the palm of his hand. Moreover, the prayer that Jesus himself taught us, the Our Father, is above all a prayer of petition…
The Pharisee asks nothing of God. The tax collector, on the other hand, begs God: “Show yourself favorable to the sinner that I am” (Lk 18, 13). The publican’s humility is twofold: on the one hand he recognizes himself as a sinner, and on the other hand he recognizes that he needs God and does not hesitate to ask his favor. And that is how the publican is a saint! In the end, it is simple to be a saint: to confess one’s sins — there is a sacrament expressly for that — and to deliver to God the desires of our heart — and that is the whole life of prayer, in particular prayer. of request. Or to put it another way, a good confession and an Our Father! To those who live from this regularly and with all their heart, Heaven reaches out to them!
