By Fr. Paul D. Scalia
“Thank God I’m not like that Pharisee!” If that was your reaction to today’s Gospel (Lk 18, 9-14), you’ve probably missed the main point. Because there is more than a little of the Pharisee in each of us, and not enough of the tax collector. Our Lord presents the parable as two distinct men in the Temple of Jerusalem. But they could just as well be two men within each of us. They represent the battle between pride and humility that rages in our souls.
Pride is disordered self-attention. We usually associate it with arrogance, with the self-exaltation we see in the Pharisee. But that’s only one of its manifestations. At the root of pride lies self-referentiality, that thinking that encloses man in himself (incurvatus in se) and incapacitates him from opening himself to God and to grace.
Pride isolates. Notice how the Pharisee is incapable of an authentic conversation with God. His prayer is centered on himself and his own virtues. He doesn’t speak of God or His goodness. In fact, he doesn’t even really address God. The text says that “he prayed with himself”. That line richly describes how spiritually paralyzing pride is. It encloses us within ourselves, preventing us from going out to speak sincerely with God or with others. It also prevents others from reaching us to offer us necessary correction.
The proud man’s only outward gaze is comparison with others. The Pharisee finds in the tax collector a contrast that makes him feel good about himself. Worse still, he believes he pleases God because he is better than another. In comparison with the “inferior,” he can stand upright and proud in his prayer. But in doing so, he builds his own prison. He has chained his worth and self-esteem to being “better” than others. This is vainglory: a useless satisfaction because it is not based on truth, but on comparison.
And the comparison could have been different. The Pharisee might have encountered someone more virtuous, who fasted and tithed more than he did. What would have happened then? For a man so centered on himself, that would have meant discouragement and despair. His peace depends so much on being “better” than others that being “worse” destabilizes him.
This too is pride: believing that we displease God because others are better than we are. It remains an excessive focus on oneself, not on God’s love for us. It is the same error of the arrogant, but with a different outcome.
The error lies in comparison. That the Pharisee considers himself better than others is, in a certain sense, secondary. The true spiritual cancer is constant comparison. Remember the advice of Uncle Screwtape: “To be” means to be in competition. The Pharisee finds his worth only in comparison with others, never in the light of God’s love for him. What gives him worth is not divine love, but being better than others. And if things had been the other way around, discouragement would have crushed him.
Comparison is the thief of joy. That old saying contains much wisdom. He who finds his worth only by comparing himself to others will be arrogant when superior, and miserable when not. They are simply two sides of the same coin of pride. Another variant consists in considering ourselves failures for not meeting our own egocentric standards, instead of welcoming the love God offers us and finding our worth in how He sees us. The proud set their own conditions for being loved, instead of receiving what God gives them freely. They want to seize what He desires to give them.
Pride is slavery. Humility is freedom. “But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’” To our culture, this would seem terribly unhealthy. They would accuse him of low self-esteem.
In reality, his humility opens the door to genuine dialogue with God. Unlike the Pharisee, he truly prays to God, not to himself. Prayer is the first fruit of humility, speaking with God not as a self-sufficient being, but as someone dependent on Him and joyful to be so.
Humility is freedom because it is truth. It is the right valuation of ourselves and our relationship with God. The tax collector knows the fundamental reality: we are sinners and God is the Savior. To be humble is to see ourselves as we are, to recognize our gifts, our faults, and our total dependence on God. It is to receive, not to seize.
And humility frees us from the trap of comparison. The humble man knows that his dignity and worth come from God. He does not fear how he measures up to others. He does not become proud if better, nor depressed if worse. He can rejoice.
The tax collector’s simple gesture has been incorporated into the Mass. We beat our breast in sign of repentance. We present ourselves to God not as the righteous who need no one, but as sinners in need of mercy. The placement of that act of humility at the beginning of the Mass is significant: it prepares the ground of our soul to receive first the Word of God and then His Body.
About the author
Fr. Paul Scalia is a priest of the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, where he serves as episcopal vicar for the clergy and pastor of Saint James in Falls Church. He is the author of That Nothing May Be Lost: Reflections on Catholic Doctrine and Devotion and editor of Sermons in Times of Crisis: Twelve Homilies to Stir Your Soul.